DVD TV Series in MP-TVSeries (1 Viewer)

[AIstudio]

Why not just convert your DVD TV series to h.264 as .mkv files by using handbrake, its free and a VERY good tool. I use it to convert ALL my DVD's now and I have virtually NO loss of quality at all. MY Family Guy collection was over 130Gb as DVD ISO's. It is now down to around 35Gb
I am happy although ti takes time to rip them.

You can get handbrake here handbrake

Regards

Kev

 

[chris882]

I have just read something about mkv, it sounds very good and interesting.

kev: sounds nice, i will test it as soon as possible.

helios: thanks a lot, but dvdfab is not the right program for me. i just configured many different settings without a good result. so i'm looking to another tool. dvd decrypter and AutoGordianKnot seems to be good. perhaps handbrake is better. don't know right now.

 

[AIstudio]

Well for me I rip all my films/ tv series DVD to hard drive via slysofts anydvd. (stops the dvd player whiring away for 4hrs if nothing else).
Then I recode with handbrake, very user friendly. Has a wiki and support. You can change your configs to whatever is acceptable to you.
For me a 3.8Gb dvd rip to mkv is not that acceptable as I would like to save some space, although the quality is top notch.
At the other end of the scale a 700mb DVD rip to avi may seem nice and small, but the quality really isn't any where near the original source in my eyes.
So a 1.4Gb to 1.6GB DVD rip to mkv with NO loss in quality is great.
for more info on the why's and whotnots for going to mkv then have a read of this How To Make High Quality Rips

Its where I started anyway

Regards

Kev

 

[Shukuyen]

I would like it that way:
You can read in your DVDs in some way. Information about them is stored in the DB like it is for series on your harddrive. When you want to watch an episode of this series a dialog pops up saying "Please insert Scrubs Season 6 Disc 3". You insert the DVD and it autoplays with the correct episode.

The main problem will be to autoplay the DVD with the correct episode, I suppose. But that would be really cool.

Bye,
Shukuyen.

 

[GDusty]

re: AIStudios comments -

sorry if this sounds too pedantic, and is getting slightly off-topic, but "mkv" is not an indicator of quality. It is just a container. It is the quality of the video stream that you put inside the mkv container that counts.

If you really wanted to, you could put the original dvd (mpeg2) files inside an mkv file and you would have identical quality (and filesize) to the original.

Or, you can re-encode the mpeg2 to a different codec (such as h264 or mpeg4), usually giving you a smaller filesize, and put this inside the mkv. But you could just as easily put your encode into an avi, or mp4 file. The video quality will be the same, independent of the container.

The determining factor for quality is the codec you use and the settings (especially bitrate) that you used for that particular encode.

 

[Undel]

I would like it that way:
You can read in your DVDs in some way. Information about them is stored in the DB like it is for series on your harddrive. When you want to watch an episode of this series a dialog pops up saying "Please insert Scrubs Season 6 Disc 3". You insert the DVD and it autoplays with the correct episode.

Yes! This is just what I need. If this feature can be implemented, it must be!

 

[AIstudio]

@ GDusty

Many apologies & yes you are quite right. I prefer the H.264 codec as it seems to be an upcoming one with a good compression rate without producing to many artifacts etc. I don't know to much about it all other than what I have read but it looks like the way to go for better support in the future too.
Regards

Kev

Sorry back on topic

 

[Reini68]

I would like it that way:
You can read in your DVDs in some way. Information about them is stored in the DB like it is for series on your harddrive. When you want to watch an episode of this series a dialog pops up saying "Please insert Scrubs Season 6 Disc 3". You insert the DVD and it autoplays with the correct episode.

The main problem will be to autoplay the DVD with the correct episode, I suppose. But that would be really cool.

Well, I'd like to support this wish. I've got original DVDs here, so why waste space, time and quality by converting them to AVI or MKV? Even if it weren't that sophisticated, I would like to have some support for DVDs. I would even appreciate it, if I had to enter it manually some way (not manually direct into the database however, because I would fear to detroy something by mishandling it).

 

[finrudd341]

I had the same dilema - I have the DVD boxsets, but actually wanted to use MY TV Series to view the episodes, rather than keep the DVD structure and do it via the menu systems. I find My TV Series way more pleasant to look at, and really shows off some of the benefits of Media Portal, rather than just being a glorified DVD player.

All my DVD's are ripped in full DVD format (.VOB files) to maintain the proper DVD structure, but in the end I decided that for the DVD Boxsets of TV Series, I would rip them to .AVI.

I used this excellent guide here: How to convert TV Series DVD episodes to DivX/XviD with ease using freeware - VideoHelp.com which was easy to follow, and works for me. It does take some time though, unless you want to compromise on quality. On a positive note, I am saving hard drive space by doing this.

Good luck - let us know what you decide to do.