Rip DVD, no transcode, files created by chapter range (TV show, seasons)

[Nerevarine]

Hey!

I have been trying to find an answer to this but it's eluding me. I simply want to rip my TV Show DVDs to manageable files for my media library. Episodes are determined by chapters, so setting chapter ranges for each file to be created and queueing them up would be perfect.

I tried ripping with DVDfab and then re-encoding with Handbrake to x264 files, but only got the quality I wanted when the files ended up almost as large as the original DVD disc... So pretty pointless, since all lossy transcodes mean loss of quality. Also fairly slow to re encode. I therefore wanted to simply cut up my VOB files into mpegs by episode, without transcoding. Select which audio-track to use and go.

Is this possible or is it overly complicated for some reason? Have looked at a lot of tools but none does this. No freeware anyways.

Maybe my media library could handle VOB files ripped directly, but it is simply bugging me a bit. I don't need extra audio tracks etc. Normal video files would be perfect. Could an MP4 or MKV contain an un-transcoded mpeg2 so I can keep chapters for each episode intact too?

[Baldrick]

Makemkv can put your dvd in a mkv untranscoded. With chapters and remove extra audio tracks.

[Nerevarine]

Sounds great! Can it also separate the multiple episode discs to individual episode files straight away or will I need to cut them apart afterwards? I.E. can it cut parts (a few chapters) out to different files or will it be one long video for each disk first?

[Baldrick]

I'm not sure how it handles series.

[Nerevarine]

Ok, will check it out and see how it works. Thanks for the tip!