[SOLVED] including VIDEO_TS *.VOB files in database (1 Viewer)

[aalemann]

Hi,

first I have to say that I really love this plugin!

But I am having problems with my DVDs copied to my NAS (I am lazy and I don't like to change discs in the evening when sitting in front of my TV ;-) ):
I am not able to let My TVseries recognize these files. The episodes are located in subfolders calles "VIDEO_TS" and there is one VOB file for each episode. (The main folder is of course name after the series and the season) I can either play them directly (by clicking on them from a file browser) or MediaPortal loads/starts the whole DVD.
But I want them to be included in this fantastic plugin.

What am I doing wrong?

 

[mpsam]

You will need to add a new rule to the parsing expression in the MP TV Series config. Something similar to
<series> - S<season>E<episode>\VIDEO_TS.IFO
for Cheers - S01E01
<series>\S<season>E<episode>\VIDEO_TS.IFO
for Cheers\S01E01
<series>-S<season>\E<episode>\VIDEO_TS.IFO
for Cheers-S01\E01

The plugin is quite flexible. You just need to tell it where to find 3 things
1 The Series name with <series>
2 The Season with <season>
3 The episode with <episode>

All 3 could be in the name of the DVD folder as in the first example above. The series name could be obtained from the parent folder while season and episode are obtained from the DVD folder as in the second example. In the third example the series name and season are from the parent folder while only episode is obtained from the DVD folder.

NB This assumes that there is no VIDEO_TS folder inside your DVD folders. If there is insert VIDEO_TS\ in the expression. Then the first example above would look like this
<series> - S<season>E<episode>\VIDEO_TS\VIDEO_TS.IFO

Hope that helps
Sam

 

[RoChess]

The problem is that a DVD can hold a ton of episodes, 4 or 6 is not uncommon. However MP-TVSeries only has support for a maximum of 2 episodes *PER* file. These are named via "Example - S01E01-02 - Pilot.ext" type of structures.

Importing a DVD would mean you refer to a single file that holds 4 or 6 episodes and you would be forced to use the DVD menu to go to the chapter you want without ability to use any of the special features MP-TVSeries supports, especially when linked to the cloud via Follw.it or Trakt.

If you are going to store the DVD onto your computer, then your best bet is to simply extract each episode and store them as-is. You can just retain the same MPEG-2 video codec and AC3 audio codec, or whatever is used, because the MKV or MP4 computer container formats have no problem to keep those audio and video codecs that are used by a DVD. The time it needs to copy it like that without re-encoding, is almost as fast as copying the VIDEO_TS folder would take.

There are many tools available that will allow you to do that, so you turn that one single DVD with a dozen episodes into individual files for each episode, consuming the exact same amount as if you had copied the ISO and/or VIDEO_TS folders (usually smaller if you skip all the extras/bonus/etc). If you have the time, you can even re-encode with a modern codec such as H.264, then that 5GB ISO file holding 6 episodes can be stored at the same quality and only occupying 2GB (350MB per episode is more then enough for SD quality of a 42min episode).

Handbrake is an awesome tool to the latter with.

 

[aalemann]

Thank you both for your detailed answer!

After your answers I was able to do the following: In the VIDEO_TS folder there is a single VTS_0*_0.IFO for every episode (or special feature). MP TVSeries recognizes these files and I can manually assign the episodes to them but when I then open MediaPortal and the TVSeries plugin and click on such an episode the full DVD menu is always loaded and I have to select the episode again from the DVD menu.

On the DVD there is one VOB file per episode, can't I tell MP TVSeries somehow to use these files? It would be something like
<series>/<series> - <season>/DVD <a number>/VIDEO_TS/*.vob

 

[aalemann]

I found what I did wrong:
My problem was that only the IFO files were recognized by MP TVSeries and not the VOB files, so all I had to do was to add this file type to the files that recognizes MediaPortal as videos. After I did this I just had to manually assign the correct episodes to the files.

Again, thanks a lot for you answers!