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  1. Member
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    I know there are different authoring techniques to manage several episodes on a season DVD; at least they can be authored as chapters or as titles. Therefore it may be hard to create a software which supports a fully automatic conversion to separate episode files. But could it be that such software exists, at least helping you discovering which kind of authoring style was used on a DVD, and accordingly separating the episodes before converting them all in a row?

    I could certainly do that manually, I have that knowledge to analyze a DVD in a ripper (or PGCDemux) and set up a matching extraction mode. But it is hard to guide a person without any experience through these steps. And such people insist in their opinion that such software must exist because demand for it exists...
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  2. Originally Posted by LigH.de View Post
    But it is hard to guide a person without any experience through these steps. And such people insist in their opinion that such software must exist because demand for it exists...
    Right.

    There are three choices, off the top of my head:

    1. Each episode is in its own VTS (very easy).
    2. The episodes are separated by PGC within the same VTS (slightly more difficult, but not much more so).
    3. They're all within the same PGC and VTS (can be the difficult one to figure out and extract, although not really if you know what you're doing).

    All can be solved by an intelligent use of PGCDemux (I think). The third case can often be solved by separating by VOB ID. If for some reason that doesn't work, you can always extract what you want using DVD Shrink in Reauthor Mode. Alternatively, select the chapters for each episode in DVD Decrypter and extract them that way. And, no, as far as I know there is no single software that will figure all this out for anyone. Maybe someone else knows better.
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  3. Some payware converters will do what you want completely automatically. I'm not sure what the current availability is after the company restructured and changed names recently, but "CloneDVDmobile" from Slysoft (now Redfox or perhaps Elby) will present you with a numbered list of episodes it finds on the dvd. You can check off just the ones you want, or tell it to extract all of them. Click one button, and it will extract them into a folder for you (in a variety of file formats/quality settings). The only thing you need to do manually is name them something useful afterward, as the auto-created title names tend to be confusing unless you enter the name you want in the output folder path (tricky). Note you would likely also need to have a decryption utility installed on the PC, such as AnyDVD, DVDfab, etc.

    MakeMKV is very popular for ripping DVDs into mkv files at 100% quality (large files, same total size as original dvd). It has its own decryption abilities. It might be able to auto-extract individual episodes, but I don't recall for sure: search older VH threads for comments. If MakeMKV does offer the "individual episode files" option, you could always use another utility like Handbrake afterward to reduce the file sizes and/or change file formats. Of course that wouldn't quite be a "one touch single app" approach: it simplicity is prized above all else, CloneDVDMobile + a background decryption utility is about as automated as it gets for ripping dvd tv series into individual video files of moderate or small size.
    Last edited by orsetto; 19th Sep 2016 at 14:06.
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    Thank you for first examples.

    Decryption won't be the primary issue.
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  5. I've used DVDShrink for ripping for years. Just change the default output size in preferences to something large (DVD9 or greater) so it won't try to shrink. I've generally run AnyDVD in the background when required.
    If you open a DVD or folder full of DVD files and use the reauthor mode, you can include just the titles you want. Most episodic DVDs have a single title per episode so it's easy to drag the appropriate ones across. For DVDs where there's multiple episodes in a single title, you can drag the single title to the left pane more than once and edit each copy down to a single episode by selecting the appropriate start and end chapters. After using the backup function, you'll have a single set of IFO/Vob files per episode.

    If you like you can drag a title for an episode to the left pane, use the backup function, delete that title, drag another one across, backup...., and that way you'll have the individual episodes in individual folders when you're done. Or if you have multiple drives you can open multiple discs and re-author them together, so for example if you have three drives and three discs containing six episodes each, after combining and re-authoring and backing up you'll have a single folder containing a set of vob files for each of the 18 episodes.

    There's also an option somewhere to prevent the splitting of vob files into 1GB segments if you prefer one large vob file per episode.
    Last edited by hello_hello; 20th Sep 2016 at 17:12.
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  6. Member Krispy Kritter's Avatar
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    I've used VidCoder in the past to do this. After the disc is ripped, open the dvd folder. The video title box will display all of the contents. This would normally default to the movie track, but with a TV show disc, there are typically 3 - 5 titles of very similar size and it will default to the first one. In any case, each of those 3 -5 titles would be an episode. When you add them to the conversion queue, you can name them however you want.
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  7. Originally Posted by Krispy Kritter View Post
    ...but with a TV show disc, there are typically 3 - 5 titles of very similar size and it will default to the first one. In any case, each of those 3 -5 titles would be an episode.
    Apparently, you've never seen a DVD where all episodes are found within a single title (a single PGC). Neither Vidcoder nor any other program I've ever seen will find these. This is the example 3 from my earlier post. And it's not even all that uncommon as anime television series DVDs do it with some regularity.
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  8. I rip episode DVDs in ifo mode in DVD Decrypter. Usually each episode is its own vob. Sometimes the episodes are combined into a big vob but then you can select the chapters you want to rip your own single episode. You have to experiment a little. For instance on the Pokemon Johto box set, each episode was four chapters totaling about 23 mins:

    - opening theme song
    - segment one
    - segment two
    - end credits

    You have to remember to rename each file you rip before you rip the next one, otherwise it will overwrite. It's not automatic at all, but it gets the job done. Good luck!

    Darryl

    Edit: The above sounds more tedious than I meant it to be. In the example above, the four chapters would be combined into a single vob. Then you rename it and select four more chapters to rip and continue.
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  9. In defence of the Vidcoder method, you can select the start and end chapters for encoding, which (I assume) would probably solve the problem of multiple episodes in a single title. Of course you'd need to determine the correct chapters yourself so it wouldn't be automatic. Handbrake lets you select the start and end chapters for encoding (or start and end times or start and end frames), so I assume Vidcoder does.
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  10. Originally Posted by hello_hello View Post
    In defence of the Vidcoder method, you can select the start and end chapters for encoding...
    Which isn't what Krispy Kritter said. And it's far from automatic. However, it sounds very similar to choosing chapters in DVDDecrypter which I mentioned earlier (and which dphirschler later described in some detail). None of this is automatic, though, which is what LigH.de was asking about originally. Maybe he can pass on your solution to his inexperienced friends.

    ...which (I assume) would probably solve the problem of multiple episodes in a single title.
    Yep, it should, if you can do that and if you can also get properly timed subtitles using that method.
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  11. Member Krispy Kritter's Avatar
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    And no, I've never come across that issue.
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