Frustrated beyond belief!

[heffneil]

I just want to say that my server is not an issue in this situation. I might argue that I have one of the most powerful servers on this forum with a dual quad core xeon dell here. I now have 12 gigs of memory and only use it to stream and rip movies.

Too bad I can't get my movies to work.

As for adding an A at the end of the movie name it didn't work. Sage instructed me how I would get the system to "forget" the movie data and reindex it so ripping in to that folder (which I don't do anymore) wouldn't make the difference.

I am open to other suggestions. At this point I am thinking I am going to re-rip my DVDs with another program like DVD Fab or something and see how that goes. Just too bad I spent so much time creating this library...

Neil

[HelenWeathers]

Originally Posted by heffneil

....Just too bad I spent so much time creating this library...

Neil

I decided to rerip all of my Blu-ray movies into folder structures rather that single .ts or .m2ts files. I have over 200 blu-rays. I am thrilled with the results. In the end it was very worth the effort. Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do.

[heffneil]

Can you explain a little more about this so I can consider your structure when I re-rip?

What are the benefits? What did you use to do it with?

Thanks!

Neil

[sandor]

Originally Posted by heffneil

I just want to say that my server is not an issue in this situation. I might argue that I have one of the most powerful servers on this forum with a dual quad core xeon dell here. I now have 12 gigs of memory and only use it to stream and rip movies.

Too bad I can't get my movies to work.

As for adding an A at the end of the movie name it didn't work. Sage instructed me how I would get the system to "forget" the movie data and reindex it so ripping in to that folder (which I don't do anymore) wouldn't make the difference.

I am open to other suggestions. At this point I am thinking I am going to re-rip my DVDs with another program like DVD Fab or something and see how that goes. Just too bad I spent so much time creating this library...

Neil

how about when you rip a movie outside of the .bat file?


rip just a chapter (something small) and see if it still has zero length. if it does, share it with the group here, and we can see what the results are on our end.

personally, i have never (in 4 years) had an issue with zero length that wasnt solved by renaming. the issue of zero length has always reared its head when i added videos to the import directory via a "slow" transfer (copy from another disk, etc) so i always make certain to copy to a directory one higher, and the move the file into the import directory.

[heffneil]

Sandor,

What product do you use to rip movies with? How are you storing those movies? A single file? I just want to understand and perhaps there is a better way.

Anyone out there rip Bambi? Also I have an issue with Star Trek First Contact. I think there is a higher chance on the later movie

Thanks!

Neil

[sandor]

Originally Posted by heffneil

Sandor,

What product do you use to rip movies with? How are you storing those movies? A single file? I just want to understand and perhaps there is a better way.

Anyone out there rip Bambi? Also I have an issue with Star Trek First Contact. I think there is a higher chance on the later movie

Thanks!

Neil

I use Handbrake when i reencode them, Fairmount and MacTheRipper to rip them. I have a combination of *.mp4 *.mkv *.mpg *.avi and VIDEO_TS folders.

They are being stored on a 2 TB RAID-5 array on a NASLite server connected via gigabit enet to the sage server.

Basically, my workflow is rip the DVD on my laptop, copy over to the top directory of NASLite server, then move it into //NasLite/Imports/Movies/Comedy/ or whatever subset directory it fits. If i *ever* try to copy from the laptop straight to the //NASLite/Imports/Movies/Comedy/ directory, it inevitably has zero length. copying it to the root directory and moving it solves this issue.

[heffneil]

I have to admit my ignorance but what is the difference between reencoding vs ripping? Is ripping stripping it down to lesser quality? Why two programs for ripping?

Thanks and sorry for all the questions.

Neil

[HelenWeathers]

Originally Posted by heffneil

Can you explain a little more about this so I can consider your structure when I re-rip?

It's not my structure, it's the native Blu-ray disc structure or the native DVD structure. The Blu-ray structure has a folder named BDMV and that folder may contain other folders like BDJO, JAR, PLAYLIST, STREAM, and others. The DVD structure has a VIDEO_TS folder (with assorted .IFO and .VOB files in it) and generally an AUDIO_TS folder etc.

What are the benefits?

All movie player software, that I can think of, supports native DVD folder structure, and the only HiDef movie player software packages that I know of support the native Blu-ray folder structure.

What did you use to do it with?

Any DVD HD to make them readable and for DVDs my preference is DVD Shrink which hasn't failed me yet when coupled with AnyDVD. There are lots of threads here with discussions on How To.

[sandor]

Originally Posted by heffneil

I have to admit my ignorance but what is the difference between reencoding vs ripping? Is ripping stripping it down to lesser quality? Why two programs for ripping?

Thanks and sorry for all the questions.

Neil

ripping is basically decrypting the content of the DVD, and then copying it, as is, to a hard drive. this gives you a VIDEO_TS folder filled with *.VOB files.

reencoding is taking that VIDEO_TS folder, and all those *.VOB files and encoding the video into another format (avi, mkv, mp4, mpg, etc)


two programs for ripping because there is no AnyDVD on the mac, and MacTheRipper is the old standby, but can have issues with newer DVDs, and Fairmount is newer, i have tested it less, but it uses VLC to decrypt DVDs on the fly.

[heffe2001]

99.9% of the time I've seen the timebar issues with my imported movies, it's because I imported it while SageTV was importing videos or checking the video storage directory during the copy. When that used to happen I'd just rename the file, and Sage picked it up on the next rescan. I no longer move movies to the server's scanned directories directly, I put them in a staging area on the same share, THEN move them into the video import directory once they are on the same drive, since that's near instantaneous... I also don't re-encode at all, I just use DVD Decryptor and pull the entire DVD structure (menus and all), and leave them untouched. I'm storing my DVD's on an Unraid server, with a current total of about 5tb of storage, and my TV storage in on the main server (a WHS server), with about 1.5tb (give or take) of storage.

Also, what OS are you using for your server, I'm assuming you're running some sort of x64 variety, if not that 12g is going to waste.

[heffneil]

Ok thanks but that definitely isn't my problem here. I have reset my library with instructions from Sage and it didn't correct the issue.

I have Windows 2003 64 bit running on this server, but thanks for your concern.

Neil

[sandor]

Originally Posted by heffneil

Ok thanks but that definitely isn't my problem here. I have reset my library with instructions from Sage and it didn't correct the issue.

I have Windows 2003 64 bit running on this server, but thanks for your concern.

Neil

have you tried manually ripping one of the problem DVDs? rule out the *.bat as the cause of your problems.

[heffneil]

I haven't yet. I need to get get the storage box of DVD's out. I was hoping I Was done with them forever

I did take a movie that was an VOB that I ripped (Dora the Explorer) that was reading 4 seconds and ran it through handbrake and now it sows 1 hour 30 minutes.

Neil

[Narflex]

I've looked at those support requests myself and I'm 99% sure your problem is that the MPG files were created incorrectly. What were the steps you actually used to create them?

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by HelenWeathers

It's not my structure, it's the native Blu-ray disc structure or the native DVD structure. The Blu-ray structure has a folder named BDMV and that folder may contain other folders like BDJO, JAR, PLAYLIST, STREAM, and others. The DVD structure has a VIDEO_TS folder (with assorted .IFO and .VOB files in it) and generally an AUDIO_TS folder etc.


All movie player software, that I can think of, supports native DVD folder structure, and the only HiDef movie player software packages that I know of support the native Blu-ray folder structure.


Any DVD HD to make them readable and for DVDs my preference is DVD Shrink which hasn't failed me yet when coupled with AnyDVD. There are lots of threads here with discussions on How To.

I assume you're keeping everything intact, right? Trailers, warnings, etc? There's currently no way to remove those extras while maintaining the Blu-ray format, correct? As much as I'd love to do it this way, I hate having to sit through trailers EVERY TIME I watch certain movies. That's what drove me to the MKV format, but that's not the easiest thing to use.

[HelenWeathers]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

I assume you're keeping everything intact, right? Trailers, warnings, etc? There's currently no way to remove those extras while maintaining the Blu-ray format, correct? As much as I'd love to do it this way, I hate having to sit through trailers EVERY TIME I watch certain movies. That's what drove me to the MKV format, but that's not the easiest thing to use.

If you only want the main movie track, TsMuxer will let you select only what you want to keep and save to a hard drive in Blu-ray structured folders. It's really easy to use.

[PeteCress]

Originally Posted by heffneil

What product do you use to rip movies with? How are you storing those movies? A single file?

I use a freebie called "DvdShrink" and rip to a single .ISO file.

Sometimes I rip the whole DVD, but more often I use an option to just rip the movie itself - bypassing all the stern warnings and advertisements giving me a file that I can just click and see the movie.

With .ISOs, I have to use the HD200 in standalone mode.

When I watch them via my itty-bitty laptop, I use another freebie called "VLC Media Player.

It all works OK for me.

My only frustration is that SageTV stores movies in different places UI-wise depending on whether the movie was "recorded" (isn't *everything* "recorded"?---) or ripped and "imported". Totally artificial and dysfunctional distinction IMHO.

But, like I said, it works....

[Slipshod]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

I assume you're keeping everything intact, right? Trailers, warnings, etc? There's currently no way to remove those extras while maintaining the Blu-ray format, correct? As much as I'd love to do it this way, I hate having to sit through trailers EVERY TIME I watch certain movies. That's what drove me to the MKV format, but that's not the easiest thing to use.

If you don't care about the disk space and just want an easy way to rip, AnyDVD's built-in "rip video to directory" function works perfectly for both Blu-Ray and DVD. Sage will only play the main movie in Blu-Ray, so while all the trailer crap is still taking up space on the hard disk you don't have to sit through it to watch the movie.

For DVDs there is a setting to "fix" the ripped video dvd to skip the trailers and go straight to the main menu (and you still have the menus/extras). It's worked perfectly on all but one DVD I've ripped. If you want to rip only the main move, DVD Shrink's re-authoring function always produces clean rips for me (provided you use anydvd to remove the encryption).

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by Slipshod

If you don't care about the disk space and just want an easy way to rip, AnyDVD's built-in "rip video to directory" function works perfectly for both Blu-Ray and DVD. Sage will only play the main movie in Blu-Ray, so while all the trailer crap is still taking up space on the hard disk you don't have to sit through it to watch the movie.

For DVDs there is a setting to "fix" the ripped video dvd to skip the trailers and go straight to the main menu (and you still have the menus/extras). It's worked perfectly on all but one DVD I've ripped. If you want to rip only the main move, DVD Shrink's re-authoring function always produces clean rips for me (provided you use anydvd to remove the encryption).

Very interesting! I didn't realize that was the case. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I'll have to give it a shot this weekend. Plus, this means that when the programs get better at removing these extras, I'll already have the originals--untouched--on the hard drive and be ready to convert/re-author them.

[MitchSchaft]

Originally Posted by QueOnda

I've been seeing WHS posted all over this forum. I guess I need to look into it more. Do you know if they have a demo to try out? Can you use on a desktop computer (aka XP replacement?)?

WHS is just a stripped down version of Win2k3. I know they had 120 day demo's, but not sure if that's still true. And you can install it on whatever machine you want.
I have the HP ex475 WHS server. The only reason I don't use it as a sage server is there is nowhere to install my tv tuner card. I would need an external HDHomerun. And the CPU(single core 1.8GHz) is kinda weak for a media server, imo. Atleast compared to my quadcore desktop box. If you set up WHS on your own hardware, then that would be no problem.