DVD/IFO workaround (2 Viewers)

[Octagon]

I've been playing around with various methods of pointing multiple episodes at one (ripped) dvd and I'm kind of liking this one - multiple renamed copies of VIDEO_TS.IFO.

Go to a dvd directory and within that directory make one copy of VIDEO_TS.IFO per episode on that disc. Then give each of those copies a name (with an IFO extenstion ) that TV Series will associate with each of the episodes. Now you've got several different files (that can be autoimported) that will all start that same dvd.

Drawbacks - the IFOs you make have to be in the directory with the rest of the dvd files (VOBS etc) so this is really only useful for dvds ripped. And while you've got multiple files that will map to different episodes they are all the same file underneath and will all start the dvd in the exact same place. You still have access to full menus but it's not quite as elegent as clicking episode X and going right to episode X.

Still, it's pretty handy if you already have various series ripped to drives. The copying and renaming only take a few minutes and the fact that you can autoimport helps avoid some of the 'disappearing info' problems associated with manual imports.

 

[RoChess]

I've been playing around with various methods of pointing multiple episodes at one (ripped) dvd and I'm kind of liking this one - multiple renamed copies of VIDEO_TS.IFO.

Go to a dvd directory and within that directory make one copy of VIDEO_TS.IFO per episode on that disc. Then give each of those copies a name (with an IFO extenstion ) that TV Series will associate with each of the episodes. Now you've got several different files (that can be autoimported) that will all start that same dvd.

Drawbacks - the IFOs you make have to be in the directory with the rest of the dvd files (VOBS etc) so this is really only useful for dvds ripped. And while you've got multiple files that will map to different episodes they are all the same file underneath and will all start the dvd in the exact same place. You still have access to full menus but it's not quite as elegent as clicking episode X and going right to episode X.

Still, it's pretty handy if you already have various series ripped to drives. The copying and renaming only take a few minutes and the fact that you can autoimport helps avoid some of the 'disappearing info' problems associated with manual imports.

If you go through all that trouble, you might as well use IFOEdit to edit all your copied+renamed IFO files to point directly to the right episode, by deleting reference to the other episodes and then saving the new IFO file. This only adds a little effort and then each IFO makes the episode it represents start directly.

 

[Octagon]

Thanks for the suggestion. I had tried using IFOedit to change the first play jumpTT destination but no matter where I pointed it the same episode would start. I now think that's because this doesn't work quite the way I thought it did.

I had originally assumed my copied VIDEO_TS.IFOs were being accepted as legitimate but it looks like they were being rejected and the player was simply defaulting to the original.

Which is fine for my purposes. I still have multiple episodes opening the correct dvd and if I feel ambitious I can use IFOedit to have it jump to the root menu on start.

Not that hitting 'menu' on the remote is a hardship or anything

 

[bregga]

I have a lot of DVD-based series I needed to import. The copy&rename of VIDEO_TS.IFO works fine - but takes some time to do manually for complete series etc.

I created a semi-automatic script that will create the needed copys. Save the below as a .bat - extension (i.e runme.bat) - put in the VIDEO_TS-folder and run.

Note - I'm no wiz to scripts/programming so this could most likely be done in a much simpler way... Feel free to comment. It does work though

@echo off
set /p Series= Name of series?
set /p Season= Season? (Two digits - 01,02, etc)
set /p First= First episode on DVD? (1, 5, 12, etc)
set /p Last= Last episode on DVD? (1, 5, 12, etc)

echo Creating files for epsiode %First% to %Last% of season %Season% of %Series%

set Nine= 9
set Ten= 10
set Lowlast= %Last%
if %Last% gtr %Nine% set Lowlast= 9

if %First% LSS %Ten% goto :TEN else goto :MORE

:TEN
for /l %%X in (%First%,1,%Lowlast%) do copy VIDEO_TS.IFO "%Series% S%Season%E0%%X.IFO"
:MORE
if %First% LSS 10 set First= 10
for /l %%X in (%First%,1,%Last%) do copy VIDEO_TS.IFO "%Series% S%Season%E%%X.IFO"