Transcode DVD's to MP4's

[CptKirk]

So over all the years, I've been ripping my DVD's to a folder on my server.

I rip each DVD to its own folder (just the title track) with the subsequent VIDEO_TS folder. Files are mpeg2 .vob.

SageTV shows them all in Videos-DVD/BD. I have the corresponding .jpg and .properties created for them.

I would like to use HandBrake to transcode them all to MP4 to reduce the size and to make them available to stream.

My question is...

After changing the DVD's to MP4 is it still possible to have them show up in SageTV at Videos-DVD/BD?

[xjim1]

If you put them in a video_ts subfolder under your title folder, they will show up as dvd/bd, but won't play.
All my externally recoded videos show up as videos in Titles & Folders and play a lot better than they ever did when I tried to play them as DVD's w/in Sage.
I don't know if changing the renderer thru setup would make a difference, but I'm guessing not.

Is there a particular reason you want to keep them id'd as DVD's?

[CptKirk]

I just like the format of how they are listed in the DVD menu.

I have the corresponding .jpg and .properties created for them so they show up with the DVD cover art with description, actors, rating, etc, etc.

[KeithAbbott]

I just experimented a bit, for me it shows up in Videos > Titles and Videos > Folders (even though I do not have the .mp4 file in a subfolder), but it is not showing up in Videos > DVD/BD.

So it looks like SageTV needs to be able to recognize it as a ripped DVD or BD format before it will display it as a DVD/BD.

[xjim1]

It needs to see the video_ts subfolder to show up as a DVD. Just create an empty one under a folder called test or something, rescan and it should show test as a dvd. You'll just get an error when you try to play it.

Mpg, mp4, avi files all show up and play as Videos as long as they're not under a video_ts folder.

I add properties and jpg files to my videos, so you may have a similar experience as to what you saw under the DVD section. Handbrake's free and it's easy enough to experiment with, so give it a try and let us know what you find!

[CptKirk]

Thanks for the feedback. Was out of town and got back last night.

Found this great link about metadata and .properties files

https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26374

Got my .properties file named correctly now and .jpg and .properties are brought into SageTV when I do the import.


Another question...

When I go into Videos-DVD/BD-Folders-DVD (where I'm putting my MP4s)

What is shown listed is the actual MP4 file name.


Is there a way to show the Title name from inside the .properties file instead?

Example

Shows filename: MCU_01_Iron_Man_01

Want to show Title: MCU 01: Iron Man

[xjim1]

There is a Title property. Then if you select titles under Videos>Titles, they can show up sorted by title instead of filename. Works great for movies, but with tv episodes it gets messy. I suppose you could create a custom category for each film or TV series...:thinking:

I'd love to see imported videos displayed more like recordings, but I think the ship on any changes to that has already sailed.

Are you saying your mp4's show up under DVD's? And play?

[CptKirk]

Yeah, if I view by Titles the mp4's show up using the title in the .properties file. But I've got hundreds of the kids anime videos in other directories, the view by Titles is really a huge mess.

No, my mp4's are not under DVD/BD. I've put the mp4's in a folder I just named DVD.

I'm getting to the mp4's by going Videos-Folders-DVD (had a typo previously).

Guess I'm going to have to resign myself to how the mp4's show up as the actual file names.

Maybe I need to look at how Gemstone or Phoenix handles them.

[xjim1]

I did some more playing around with categories, which up to now, I only used to classify and generate the initial properties file. So I selected the 'movie' category and added a custom category of the movie's title.
Now when I go into Videos>Category, my film shows up under it's title category. It also shows up under my Movie category. The nice thing about that is I can have movies from multiple import sources all show up together regardless of location, either by movie or title category. I've always used >Folders option before.

I know that's almost stupidly simple, and I do feel a little dumb that I never thought of it before (especially since I have to update all my properties files now). But also kinda cool that I'm still discovering features of this fine product after all these years. Sometimes maybe it's ok to be a little slow.

Anyway, don't know if that's of any value to you, but wanted to share it regardless.

[CptKirk]

Yup, that little 'work-around' did it for me as well.

Open up a .properties file but didn't find a Category field.

I then went to Videos-Category and saw that those are actually the .properties Genre field.

So I added an a_DVD genre (didn't want to scroll down to Movie every time) to a .properties file.

Success!!!

Now when I go into Videos-Category I see a_DVD at the top and my DVD MP4 files are shown by the title set in the .properties field.

Thanks for the suggestion, I doubt I would have thought of trying this.


I'm doing all of my DVD's to MP4 from scratch so I'll just do my .properties one at a time as I'm converting them. To do a bunch at one time I would do the following:

1. Open Windows Explorer
2. Open the folder that has all the .properties files
3. Do a search for *.properties
4. Select all
5. Right-click the selected *.properties files and select 'Edit with Notepad++' (Notepad++ is an awesome free text editor if you're not using it already)
6. In one of the .properties files highlight Genre= and hit CTRL-H (this brings up the Replace dialog)
7. Find what should show 'Genre=', set Replace with should be set to 'Genre=a_DVD, ' (or whatever Category/Genre you want to use)
8. Click the 'Replace All in All Opened Documents' button and let Notepad++ do it's thing
9. Click the Replace Close button
10. Click the Save All button on the button menus
11. Close Notepad++
12. All done

[xjim1]

"...those are actually the .properties Genre field"

Yeah I've noticed a few disparities like that between what Sage displays and variables in the properties file.

Thanks for the Notepad++ suggestion. I think I'll try that since now I want to reset all my previous categories and focus on custom named categories from now on.
Cheers