[Novocaine]

Hi,

I'm pretty new to XBMC but so far really impressed. I was wondering if anyone could help me with the recommended folder structure for DVD Rips of TV Shows for example, here is what I currently have:

C:\Media\TV Shows\The Wire\Season 1 - Disc 1
C:\Media\TV Shows\The Wire\Season 1 - Disc 2

Each "Season x - Disc x" folder contains a VIDEO_TS and a AUDIO_TS which is a rip of the entire DVD.

The info on the "The Wire" folder is picked up straight away but I'm not sure what I need to change to get the Season information?

Or maybe I'm going about this the wrong way.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Regards,

Nov.

[Novocaine]

Would appriciate any help with this, I've been searching forum and digging through the wiki but I haven't come across anything that covers this.

[DazNoonan]

Personally I would say you need to merge the disc's together and simply have the following:

C:\Media\TV Shows\The Wire\Season 1
C:\Media\TV Shows\The Wire\Season 2
etc... etc...

At present it wont understand Season 1 - Disc 1, but it will understand Season 1 on its own. Plus you don't need Season 1 split to DVD's as your now not dealing with DVD's if that makes sense?

[super_sobbie]

I have been remuxing all my episodes to individual mkv files. it only take a short time since it is not converting anything and then when you click on one of the episodes it just plays that episode which I like. I am still working on this so I do have some DVDs for TV Episodes.

/share/TV/Show/DVD.S01E01E02E03E04S00E01.iso

That is a simple way for your library to tag it as a DVD and also all episodes in teh DVD. the example above has a DVD from season 1 episode 1-4 and a special on it (S00E01).

Personally I still suggest remuxing them. Remuxing will not save you room but will keep the DVD quality of hte episode.

Hope that helps.

SoBBie


PS: If you use a external tool like I do (Such as Media Companion) to get nfo and artwork then you will want to skip those directorys. I find that XBMC does a better job of getting that information.

PPS: Also I dont use a Season folder because some DVDs that I have cross seasons according to theTVDB

[Novocaine]

Personally I would say you need to merge the disc's together and simply have the following:

C:\Media\TV Shows\The Wire\Season 1
C:\Media\TV Shows\The Wire\Season 2
etc... etc...

At present it wont understand Season 1 - Disc 1, but it will understand Season 1 on its own. Plus you don't need Season 1 split to DVD's as your now not dealing with DVD's if that makes sense?

Hi,

So I can merge all the VIDEO_TS folders for each DVD in to one for each season?

[Novocaine]

I have been remuxing all my episodes to individual mkv files. it only take a short time since it is not converting anything and then when you click on one of the episodes it just plays that episode which I like. I am still working on this so I do have some DVDs for TV Episodes.

/share/TV/Show/DVD.S01E01E02E03E04S00E01.iso

That is a simple way for your library to tag it as a DVD and also all episodes in teh DVD. the example above has a DVD from season 1 episode 1-4 and a special on it (S00E01).

Personally I still suggest remuxing them. Remuxing will not save you room but will keep the DVD quality of hte episode.

Hope that helps.

SoBBie



PS: If you use a external tool like I do (Such as Media Companion) to get nfo and artwork then you will want to skip those directorys. I find that XBMC does a better job of getting that information.

PPS: Also I dont use a Season folder because some DVDs that I have cross seasons according to theTVDB

Hi and Thanks,

What tools are you using to remux your DVD's into episodes?

[DazNoonan]

Hi,

So I can merge all the VIDEO_TS folders for each DVD in to one for each season?

Yes that should work...

So you would have:
C:\Media\TV Shows\The Wire\Season 1\Part1.VOB
C:\Media\TV Shows\The Wire\Season 1\Part2.VOB
C:\Media\TV Shows\The Wire\Season 2\Part1.VOB
C:\Media\TV Shows\The Wire\Season 2\Part2.VOB

* Obviously the .vob names I have stated won't be correct *

On another note, merging them together is obviously another option, but personally I would actually rather go the other way and use something like Handbreak to split each DVD into episodes. This is simply because I like the idea of having each episode as its own file, but again this is all down to personal preference.

My Setup would then be as follows:
C:\Media\TV Shows\The Wire\Season 1\TheWire_S01E01.mkv
C:\Media\TV Shows\The Wire\Season 1\TheWire_S01E02.mkv
etc... etc... (then)
C:\Media\TV Shows\The Wire\Season 2\TheWire_S02E01.mkv
C:\Media\TV Shows\The Wire\Season 2\TheWire_S02E02.mkv
etc... etc...

* You don't have to use mkv thats just again my choice, I know a lot of people like .avi still *

Hope this all helps, and good luck with whichever way you decide to keep your files sorted.

[Novocaine]

Yes that should work...

So you would have:
C:\Media\TV Shows\The Wire\Season 1\Part1.VOB
C:\Media\TV Shows\The Wire\Season 1\Part2.VOB
C:\Media\TV Shows\The Wire\Season 2\Part1.VOB
C:\Media\TV Shows\The Wire\Season 2\Part2.VOB

* Obviously the .vob names I have stated won't be correct *

On another note, merging them together is obviously another option, but personally I would actually rather go the other way and use something like Handbreak to split each DVD into episodes. This is simply because I like the idea of having each episode as its own file, but again this is all down to personal preference.

My Setup would then be as follows:
C:\Media\TV Shows\The Wire\Season 1\TheWire_S01E01.mkv
C:\Media\TV Shows\The Wire\Season 1\TheWire_S01E02.mkv
etc... etc... (then)
C:\Media\TV Shows\The Wire\Season 2\TheWire_S02E01.mkv
C:\Media\TV Shows\The Wire\Season 2\TheWire_S02E02.mkv
etc... etc...

* You don't have to use mkv thats just again my choice, I know a lot of people like .avi still *

Hope this all helps, and good luck with whichever way you decide to keep your files sorted.

Cool, thanks.

I like the idea of splitting them in to episodes, I gave Handbreak a try using the "Normal" profile I think but I noticed that the output seemed a little pixelated during movement. What settings do you use?

[DazNoonan]

Cool, thanks.

I like the idea of splitting them in to episodes, I gave Handbreak a try using the "Normal" profile I think but I noticed that the output seemed a little pixelated during movement. What settings do you use?

If Hard Drive space isn't an issue then you could go for "High Profile" as this will give you the best of everything. The default file format for all the presents is .mp4 though, so I ensure I change the format to .mkv and this then outputs the file as a .mkv file, which is what I want all mine to be.

If you want to simply keep the DVD as full DVD quality then another option for future is to use something like RipIt which will rip the full DVD as a .VOB file, this is better for films though rather than TV Shows (as films don't need splitting). Either that or us something like MakeMKV if you do wish to have everything as a.mkv file. Obviously ripping a DVD this way will mean the file size is huge (well full DVD size so 4.xGB).

Personally Handbreak works well for me, and as stated above choosing "High Profile" and then .mkv seems to work well for me. For the Quality I choose around 62% (0.62). This makes the DVD size anywhere from 1GB-2GB.

If you want anymore info then let me know, hopefully this is helping though... Alot of this really is down to trial and error and can even come down to your own personal preference.

[Novocaine]

If Hard Drive space isn't an issue then you could go for "High Profile" as this will give you the best of everything. The default file format for all the presents is .mp4 though, so I ensure I change the format to .mkv and this then outputs the file as a .mkv file, which is what I want all mine to be.

If you want to simply keep the DVD as full DVD quality then another option for future is to use something like RipIt which will rip the full DVD as a .VOB file, this is better for films though rather than TV Shows (as films don't need splitting). Either that or us something like MakeMKV if you do wish to have everything as a.mkv file. Obviously ripping a DVD this way will mean the file size is huge (well full DVD size so 4.xGB).

Personally Handbreak works well for me, and as stated above choosing "High Profile" and then .mkv seems to work well for me. For the Quality I choose around 62% (0.62). This makes the DVD size anywhere from 1GB-2GB.

If you want anymore info then let me know, hopefully this is helping though... Alot of this really is down to trial and error and can even come down to your own personal preference.

Awesome. Thanks a lot for all your help.

[DazNoonan]

Awesome. Thanks a lot for all your help.

Just downloaded the latest version and for some reason couldn't see the 60% I talked about above, so I did everything else but left where I would normally change to 20 and the film still turned out well.

[super_sobbie]

Hi and Thanks,

What tools are you using to remux your DVD's into episodes?

I have been using DVDFab on a windows machine (yes I know... Windows go figure). But it takes only a few seconds to remux to a single episode.

If you are looking to save space you could use DVDFab and choose a different setting like mp3 audio or one use your own settings.


Good Luck and happy Ripping

SoBBie