Support for DVD rips of TV Shows

Create a folder named after a TV Show present on the TVDB (ie, “Firefly”).

Create a subfolder for the first season named “Season 01”.

Place two files in the “Season 01” folder with a file name like ## – Episode Title.ext (one ISO and one MKV). Open MediaBrowser and navigate to the folder. The MKV should receive metadata and the ISO will not. Checking the log will show that MediaBrowser attempted to pull the information from The Movie DB for the ISO file (as identified in the thread linked above).

Oops… just wanted to vote for this one, not make any comment, but I can’t seem to find a way to delete this post.

Anyway, this feature used to work on previous versions and was a very interesting one.

Not having this feature is giving me a lot of extra work. I rip my series DVDs on an episode basis rather than ripping the whole disc. I like this way better since I can more easily keep track of my watched episodes. Now, because I cannot do it anymore, I have to convert each ISO to an MKV and then I still have to extract the subtitles from the MKV file. I do this because my girlfriend doesn’t understand english that much. The biggest problem resulting from this method is that the subtitle extraction doesn’t always work correctly, sometimes I don’t even get half the subs from some of the MKVs.

I'll bite,

ok, so we detect an iso as a season or part of a season. Now what?

We need a new metadata format that will tell us where each episode is on the DVD AND we need to extend our playback mechanism to skip to that part of the DVD.

Then we need a new metadata tool that will look this info up from tvdb.

Its a massive project.

Cant you use the DVD ID to know which show and which part is?

That way you “just” need to point the playback to the right file inside the dvd.

It would be a great feature if you could solve this “small” setbacks.

Sure once you get the DVD ID you still need to control playback some how … and move to the correct position on the DVD (which is not trivial and different on both Vista and 7) this is a massively complicated piece.

not sure if the issue is understood by Sam. We don’t rip the whole season DVd’s into one iso but each separate episode into one single iso. so basically what you get is one file for one episode. Previous versions of MB used to recognise an .iso episode just like it recognises an .mkv episode. Since 2.1 that was broken. Unless I do not understand, fixing this doesn’t seem heavy, right?

iso formatted epsiodes are named just like mkv’s are named. for instance ‘24-S1E01.iso’, ‘24-S1E02.iso’ , …

so, I don’t think it’s a feature request but a bug report since iso formatted episodes used to work with previous versions of MB.

I really hope this can be quickly fixed with next release

Is this a dupe of http://community.mediabrowser.tv/topics/695

Is this a dupe of http://community.mediabrowser.tv/topics/695

yes.

OK but this is a bug not a feature request, re categorizing.

Ok

1.iso
2.iso
3.iso 

should work now.

Anyway we could make this work for file structure rips too? Both Video_TS and BDMV?

MKV just isn’t working for me so I'd like to bust out my DVD/BD TV sets to true BDs or DVDs (using DVDFab).

@ebr, sure open a feature request on it … I want the dream maker badge :)

Badge hog :P

@ebr

you can easily rip your DVD tv series into single episode iso images (I use clone dvd together with anydvd). it works fine and all remote controll functions are available: ff/rw/subtitle/audio tracks…

Not a fan of ISOs. Don’t want to have to “mount”. But, if that’s the only option, it may beat the MKV mess I have now…

indeed… MKV is a mess. do not understand why people use it. ff/rw/subtitles/audio streams do not work in MCE. the only adavantage I see is a file of a few 100MB less. with HDD’s at 10c/GB that’s hardly an issue.

Has anyone actually tested this (I know that there appears to be a lack of ISO files amongst the devs)as it certainly wasn’t working on build 1671 (the last one I actually compiled)

I'm sorry to keep on about this issue, but there are users waiting on this solution and it is shown as fixed in Firestorm, can anyone actually confirm this, or is that fact that it has been marked as fixed, meant it has been lost from the radar? – it ain’t fixed as far as I know.

My test cases still pass, so this still should be working in trunk.

Sam – just tried playback and metadata retrieval from the latest committed build and it seems as though metadata retrieval may be working, but as with the last-fix we discussed, the remedy has rendered the ISO file playback as useless – certainly on my machine – it is being recognised as a VC-1 type file, with a huge file resolution, these are standard definition 4:3 ratio rips, with a file size of around 1.2gb, but they are being reported as having resolution size of 7546x5910, their actual resolution size is 720x576 and play at that resolution in mkv format.

I have also tried plain AUDIO/VIDEO_TS rips and when I attempt playback I get the error message – Invalid Application unable to launch MediaBrowser. ANy suggestions?

EDIT – This failure to playback DVD files and ISO images only manifests itself with TV series – movies ripped in either of these formats playback flawlessly.

OK this is my final attempt at trying to get a solution for this. I downloaded the latest svn trunk and ISO playback is possible – However, these files (though now retrieving metadata) and playing, show none of the characteristics of an ISO file – there is no chapter support, neither ff or rew work as expected and they show the media close down screen in mce – if a true ISO then on stop the user should be reverted to the detail screen and resume automatically on restart (they don’t, the user is given the option to resume the file playback an other media files react in this way ISO’s don’t) – in short they may play from ISO files but that is where the similarity ends.

MB also still baulks at DVD folder playback as per my previous report.

Sam can you confirm a working ISO (with all the playback characteristics as described – because this is driving me crazy). As I say my final attempt, unfortunately I cannot get anyone else to help on this issue – even tried on AVS HTPC Thread – to no avail. No doubt these users who all asked for this will come screaming and shouting if it doesn’t work as expected on release. Perhaps it is me, or my set-up I don’t know. Put me out my misery Sam and confirm playback characteristics lol.

Thanks

I figured out what is going on, its an issue with the metadata provider, its fairly hairy to fix.

That’s good to hear, was beginning to think it was me. How ‘hairy’ are we talking lol.

should be fixed in trunk

Aaaargh I don’t believe it – got a major crash on my main PC – will try and resolve and test ASAP. Will let you know as soon as I can compile. Thanks

All working again – but the “Harbinger of Doom” – your theoretical fix has changed nothing from my last observations. No DVD rip playback – ISO playback – but not as ISO files. Metadata OK.

Direct vob playback for episodes is now working just checked in a fix, direct vob playback for movies (eg. a movie folder with vob and no ifo or bup) is not working, a separate ticket should be opened for it.

Tested with both structures:

 
Simpsons 
 Season 1 
  01.vob
  02.vob 

and

Simpsons
 Season 1
  1
   episode.vob
  2
   episode.vob

Have not tested iso playback.

He He your really going to love me – with ebr’s help (compilation of svn’s on my main PC is useless at the moment), he provided me with the latest build.

Guess what I cannot, despite trying several file combinations and structures, get this to work, the closest I got was with normal DVD structure (including VIDEO and AUDIO_TS folders) where I got sound but no video, though chapter skip, ff etc appeared to work. ISO playback is useless (and frankly I don’t think its worth anyone’s time attempting a solution.

Before I really do give up the ghost on getting a working solution, could you clarify your file structure to me – might be me but I'm slightly confused by the last comment. Could you also confirm what ripping software you use. I use dvd shrink and/or dvdfab to rip to DVD structure single vob (no 1gb split), ifo and bup files. Are you suggesting that all related files ifo, bup etc be deleted, the vob file then be renamed 01, 02 etc and dropped into the sub-folder below the season folder eg:–

Murder One\Season 1\01.vob, 02.vob etc

I have just tried that and it just doesn’t work. Nor do any other of the various combinations attempted (with and without full DVD file structure.

Perhaps it is time for someone else to take up the baton on this one – ebr could you or one of the other devs try this out with a DVD rip just to see whether it is my system that is causing the issue. I and others had this same playback issue while trialing MyTV and while I don’t doubt that Sam is achieving playback of these files, it would be nice if someone other than he or I reported success or failure.

Sam thanks for your hard work in attempting/achieving a solution it is appreciated.

your directory structure should work, can ebr confirm here that you have a build that contains the fix?

He does have the build with your changes in it. I don’t have good data to test with, but I'll see if I can create some…

ebr – you been able to replicate any of the above behaviour – just curious. I have tried every combination I can think of since last evening without success.