Background: We have been able to rip and manage audio tracks from Music CDs for years, but there is not an automated process to do the same with Music DVDs. The following process provides one way of manually creating these Video Tracks and how to configure JRiver’s Media Center 12 (MC12) https://www.videohelp.com/tools/J._River_Media_Center so that they are handled just like the rest of your music collection. Of course this process can only be used where permitted by your local laws for the Music DVD’s that you own.

What Tools you will need: Apart from MC12, the only other thing you will need is a DVD Ripper capable of outputting each DVD Chapter as an initial file – for this example we are using DVD Decrypter.

What you need to do: You will need to change the IFO Mode Settings for the File Splitting to be “By Chapter” as shown below.


After selecting IFO Mode under the Mode Tab you should be presented by the following window where you would select the PGC containing the Chapters you need to rip. Each chapter should represent one of the tracks on the disk + potentially other tracks like credits etc. You may even find multiple PGCs that contain the Chapters you want (they will be mostly the same material but can be presented in different orders, or contain a different set of tracks).


The Stream Processing tab then lets you select what you want to extract from the DVD. In my case I want the Video and the 5CH DTS Audio track. You may want to select a different Audio Track for your needs.


From here press the DVD to Disk button and wait as the chapters are ripped to your selected directory.

If you have not already, you will now need to ensure you can see the full name of each file including the file extension by unchecking the “Hide extensions for known file types”


As there is no Music DVD Track based lookup internet based lookup service you will need to start renaming the file and folder names yourself. Remember to use the same naming convention as you use for your Music Tracks. For me it is “## Track Name” but you MUST change the file extension from .VOB to .MPG as shown below so they will play in MC12. When you are finished you can delete the IFO file and any of the VOBs you don’t want to keep (eg the credits etc).


Move the lot of the files into you folder structure based on “Artist > Album” (eg in this case it is in “Queen? > “Greatest Video Hits 1”) so it should now look like the following.


Then start MC12 and run "File > Library > Run Auto Import Now". You should then see under “Recently Imported” something like the following. (Note: you should also see the Thumbnails being built during this import process).


You now need to select all these files, right click on them and use the “Library Tools > File Properties from Filename” option. You should get a Diag box as below and you change the values to suite your particular schema for Artist, Album, Track # and Name. MC12 will then read the file structure detail and update its fields accordingly.


You can now use MC12 to rate each track, assign Genre’s accordingly to suit your needs. I used the Genre field in my Video collection to distinguish between Music Videos, Home Videos, TV Series, etc.


The Result: It’s a bit of work but you to benefits:
1) Your Music Video is now stored on the HDD as individual MPG files, and
2) Your Music Video Tracks are being managed in MC12 just like Audio Tracks.

Eg: I primarily use Theater View with the BlackStar Blue visualisation so I can now mix a match in Playlists (including smartlists) where BOTH Audio and Video music plays either Full Screen video during a Music Video Track or alternatively displays the BlackStar Blue Vis (including Coverart etc) when it is an Audio only tracks. Also for Audioscrobbler users, changing the plug in to also accept *.MPG as a file type then also updates your Last FM stats. The following gives you an idea of how the end product looks from Theater View