[sylv1]

Hello,

I have transferred all my DVDs to a hard drive without compressing them (only menus removed) so the files stored in the hard drive are *.vob files limited to 1Gb.
The movies have been dealt with and it looks great on XBMC.

The issue I'm having is with the TV shows as some of the episodes are split up in 2 or more *.vob (due to the 1Gb limit on the size of the *.vob).
I have used the convention S01E01.1 then S01E01.2 and although they are scrapped correctly, XBMC shows the same title twice on my list.
Also it doesn't go to the next part of the episode automatically when the 1st part finishes.
Not a huge issue but it would be nice if I could have 1 title for the episode and for it to play all the way through.

Here is an example if my description didn't make sense:

Files stored in my hard as follow:
TV Shows\An Idiot Abroad\Season 1\An Idiot Abroad S01E01E02E03E04\S01E01.1.VTS_01_1.vob
TV Shows\An Idiot Abroad\Season 1\An Idiot Abroad S01E01E02E03E04\S01E01.1.VTS_01_1.vob
TV Shows\An Idiot Abroad\Season 1\An Idiot Abroad S01E01E02E03E04\S01E02.1.VTS_01_1.vob
TV Shows\An Idiot Abroad\Season 1\An Idiot Abroad S01E01E02E03E04\S01E02.1.VTS_01_1.vob
TV Shows\An Idiot Abroad\Season 1\An Idiot Abroad S01E01E02E03E04\S01E03.1.VTS_01_1.vob
TV Shows\An Idiot Abroad\Season 1\An Idiot Abroad S01E01E02E03E04\S01E03.1.VTS_01_1.vob
TV Shows\An Idiot Abroad\Season 1\An Idiot Abroad S01E01E02E03E04\S01E04.1.VTS_01_1.vob
TV Shows\An Idiot Abroad\Season 1\An Idiot Abroad S01E01E02E03E04\S01E04.1.VTS_01_1.vob

This is how it displays on XBMC
01.China
01.China
02.India
02.India
03.Jordan
03.Jordan
04.Mexico
04.Mexico

From thre naming convention explanation it seems to be behaving correctly where the sub-part is not displayed, only the full episode number is so I don't know if there is another way to do this.

Note: for Movie folders, there are several *.vob files too but yet XBMC shows only one title and play the movie in its entirety?!

I hope I was clear enough on what I'm trying to achieve here, if not ask me.

Thanks in advance.

[Mar16]

Since they are vobs you can use VOBMerge, it will join the files together, so each episode can be 1 file.

http://www.videohelp.com/tools/VOBMerge

[jjd-uk]

In Settings -> Videos -> File Lists

have you got "Combine split video items" enabled?

[jjd-uk]

Also any particular reason you are ripping to vob and restricting to 1GB for each individual vob? ripping each episode to mkv would make more sense since you're not keeping the menu's unless you need vob files for compatibility with other devices.

[sylv1]

Thanks for the replies guys.
I have enabled the 'combine split video items' but that didn't seem to change anything for some reasons (I scanned for new content too just in case it needed to refresh with the new settings).

I've decided to go with .vob as I didn't want to lose in quality compared to a DVD and as far as I understand .mkv are compressed so they are not the same quality as a DVD? The restriction is not something I have set, it's apparently how .vob files work, they are limited to 1Gb?!
Also I'm using DVDFab and DVD Shrink and it's quite easy to use to just get the movie and the subtitles and languages I need.
It works perfectly for movies but the split episodes are not great. I even found worse now where I have files with the end of an episode and the beginning of the next one! so my title looks like s01e02b.s01e03a... ! Not ideal!

If it turns out to be possible to have .mkv uncompressed therefore the exact same quality as a DVD then I might go for this option.

I will probably give VOBMerge a go too for the files I already have.

Thanks

[jjd-uk]

What you want is perfectly possible with mkv as it is just a container, the contents of which can be a 1:1 copy of original video stream so completely uncompressed using a tool such as MakeMKV, or where compression is desired video can be re-encoded and put into a mkv using a tool such as Handbrake.

As for your issue with vob the S01E01.1 and S01E01.2 naming is normally for official multi-part episodes, not entirely sure if this is how they should be named for your scenario. Btw, have you got a typo in your hard drive file structure above as for example you repeat

TV Shows\An Idiot Abroad\Season 1\An Idiot Abroad S01E01E02E03E04\S01E01.1.VTS_01_1.vob

twice so no

TV Shows\An Idiot Abroad\Season 1\An Idiot Abroad S01E01E02E03E04\S01E01.2.VTS_01_1.vob

shown.

[jjd-uk]

Ok further reading suggests what you are seeing is correct behaviour unless the wiki is out dated.

What you want is file stacking however this only works for Movies, see file_staking (wiki) with relevant part being "File stacking only works for movies and does not work yet for TV shows".

It would appear you naming would be incorrect anyway as you probably need S01E01.Part1 and S01E01.Part2, what you are seeing with S01E01.1 and S01E01.2 would appear correct going by Naming_video_files/TV_shows (wiki) with relevant part being for split episodes where it says "Each part will be added to the library just with its full episode number, the sub-part will not be displayed".

[sylv1]

Thanks for the info jjd-uk.

I didn't realise you could do this with mkv (I guess I always saw mkv copies of movie reduced to 1Gb or 700mb and not looking as good as the original so I assumed it was only possible to get a compressed version).
I'll give it try.
Yes it is a typo sorry, I have named them with 1 and 2.
I see what you mean about the 'official multi-part episodes', I thought it was a way to link 2 parts of episodes together and after reading the link you sent I can see that the file stacking would be my answer IF it was working for TV Shows.

I new XBMC was behaving as it should according to the wiki, I didn't know if there was a way around the duplicate title and the fact I had to click on each part to read it, no link between the parts.

I'll try the .part1 and .part2 to see if that makes any difference even though it's not supposed to work for TV shows.

Thanks

[sylv1]

Hi guys,

Just for info, I've tried ".part1" and ".part2" but it didn't work.
In the end I've used VOBMerge which is a great program by the way.

I'll use MakeMKV in the future as it is now taking a long time to rearrange the files!

Thanks for the help anyway, learnt quite a lot from this thread.

[infinitbullets]

Hi, I arrived at this thread while searching for this same subject, but my question wasn't answered. I did, however, have an answer for the .vob situation discussed here, and I hope it's helpful though months later. I've also ripped my DVD collection to .vob files in VIDEO_TS folders, so the multiple parts like VTS_01_1.VOB VTS_01_2.VOB etc. will be segregated from the other movies' .vobs and don't need to be renamed. I've stripped extras and menus, and dropped everything but multichannel English audio for extra space. On Mac at least, the version of Kodi I'm running will identify containers like .dvdmedia which can be appended to the name of the folder, which is also the movie title. The folder will change to a single icon that is simpler to manipulate and Kodi recognizes it as a single movie. On PC, .dvdmedia suffixes don't do anything special, so you just get a folder, but it's still helpful to reduce clutter & renaming. I think with recursive search off library updates should trigger on your folders, and then you can manually adjust each item's appearance.

Was the original question ever answered? I'd really just like to seamlessly play The Godfather, Pt. 2 or the Lord of the Rings extended set without going back to the menu, and have a single menu entry.

[k4sh1n]

Press context menu and choose play on the whole set, not just individual movies

[sylv1]

Hi infinitbullets,

In the end I used VOB Merge to link VOB files together and Mpg2cut2 to split some of the episodes as the conversion had linked the end of an episode with the beginning of one!!
It was a time consuming job but it's done now.
I didn't mind having .vob files bigger than 1Gb as I'm only playing on a PC.

I don't know about being able to play extended set as I only keep the movie or the episode only (no bonus or extras).

PS: My issue was just on series though as the movies were handled correctly (even though there were a lot of .vob files in the folder).

Hope this helps.