# Backup DVD's electronicly or buy a 100 disc DVD changer?



## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

I wish I had better luck with DVD Fab or Video Converter to rip my DVD's onto my PC and store on my 1 or 2 TB drive but I tried a few times and didn't have success getting them to play on my Tivo. 

Do you suggest trying a 2nd time or getting a used 100+ DVD changer online and play the movies through a 2nd input?

Thank you,

Shane


----------



## pdcullen (May 19, 2010)

I use AnyDVD and Handbrake, it is really simple. Depending on the movie, I pull it to the Premire with pyTivo, or I stream with kttmg. I suppose if I'd want to go to the S2 I would use AnyDVD and then something like VideoRedo's quickstreamfix to create an Mpeg.

I miss turning subs on and off easily, eventually I might try out a media player that can play isos.

I think the changer is a good idea for a small collection that is not growing fast.


----------



## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

If I find a deal on a 100 or 400 DVD player and it's easy to Title the DVD's, I wouldn't mind picking one up. 

Does anyone have expierance with Handbreak, does that rip a DVD and easily play it on the Tivo?


----------



## tootal2 (Oct 14, 2005)

My sony 400 disc changer stopped working Dvd do look better when played on a good dvd player. They look almost like hd on my blu-ray player. also the newer blu-ray players open fast making it easy to change disc



Shanezam203 said:


> If I find a deal on a 100 or 400 DVD player and it's easy to Title the DVD's, I wouldn't mind picking one up.
> 
> Does anyone have expierance with Handbreak, does that rip a DVD and easily play it on the Tivo?


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Shanezam203 said:


> I wish I had better luck with DVD Fab or Video Converter to rip my DVD's onto my PC and store on my 1 or 2 TB drive but I tried a few times and didn't have success getting them to play on my Tivo.


How are you trying to publish the content to your TiVo?


----------



## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I think Handbrake is a bad choice if your ultimate goal is to play the files on your TiVo. The reason being is that Handbrake converts everything to H.264. Not only does the initial conversion take a significant amount of time but when you transfer the recordings back to your TiVo they have to be recoded back to MPEG-2, which results in a loss of quality.

In fact there really isn't a good way to rip DVDs and play them on your TiVo. The biggest problem when converting from DVD to TiVo is actually the subtitles. DVDs store subtitles in a format which only DVD players understand. So the only way to display them on your TiVo is to recode the video and burn the subtitles right into the video. Now you may think that you don't need the subtitles, but trust me you do. A LOT of movies use the subtitle track of a DVD to actually store subtitles which are necessary to the enjoyment of the movie. For example these "forced subtitles" are used for when the aliens speak in Star Wars, and without them the movie becomes unwatchable in parts. There is also the issue with frame rates. DVDs tend to use a lot of repeat frames to convert 24fps film to 29.97fps NTSC. Older TiVos don't always handle these very well.

I personally think you're better off with a 400 dics changer. Or if you want to go all digital build yourself a media center PC and then rip your dics to ISO files, mount them using Virtual Clone Drive and play them back in something like PowerDVD. That way it'll be just like having the physical disc with all the subtitle tracks, audio tracks and extra features. There may even be some easy to use program with a 10' UI out there that makes this seamless. (XBMC?)

Noe if you only want to rip TV show DVDs then you'll probably be OK. Tehy usually have the forced subtitles burnt right into the video stream and are already NTSC formatted so they don't have much problems playing on the TiVo.

Dan


----------



## windracer (Jan 3, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> The biggest problem when converting from DVD to TiVo is actually the subtitles. DVDs store subtitles in a format which only DVD players understand. So the only way to display them on your TiVo is to recode the video and burn the subtitles right into the video.


Yeah, that really annoys me. I've been using DVDFab and VideoReDo to rip my DVDs for playback on the TiVos for years but it's always those DVDs with forced subtitles (like the Star Wars movies) that shows the flaw in my methods.


----------



## pmiranda (Feb 12, 2003)

I thought there was a way to convert subtitles to closed captions?
Personally I find power dvd so clunky that I'd rather wait to rip a dvd and transfer it to TiVo than play it live.


----------



## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

I found a Sony 400 disc DVD changer for cheap, I will try that & see if I can easily label the titles. It's nice there is a PS2 input for keyboard entry. 

Thanks all,

Shane


----------



## Solman (Nov 26, 2006)

Before buying my pioneer 301 DVD, I researched both the Pioneer and Sony and some a lot of bad consumer reviews on the sony, which is why I went with the pioneer five years ago. This year I daisy-chained another pioneer for 601 discs. It is great. One remote and all dvds show up as though it is one unit. Title input is almost all automatic, but the ones that are not read can be put in by keyboard. I havent found anything it doesnt play, including dvd-r that I have from home movies. I was shocked that Sony had such bad feedback, which included destroying dvds. I have a lot of sony components and was really dissappointed when I read reviews. Tread carefully-many people regret ever owning it after the damage it did.

John


----------



## Solman (Nov 26, 2006)

Before buying my pioneer 301 DVD, I researched both the Pioneer and Sony and some a lot of bad consumer reviews on the sony, which is why I went with the pioneer five years ago. This year I daisy-chained another pioneer for 601 discs. It is great. One remote and all dvds show up as though it is one unit. Title input is almost all automatic, but the ones that are not read can be put in by keyboard. I havent found anything it doesnt play, including dvd-r that I have from home movies. I was shocked that Sony had such bad feedback, which included destroying dvds. I have a lot of sony components and was really dissappointed when I read reviews. Tread carefully-many people regret ever owning it after the damage it did.

Sony reviews: http://reviews.pricegrabber.com/dvd-players-recorders/m/9723273/st=product_link/sv=all_user_reviews/

John


----------



## Solman (Nov 26, 2006)

Same site-reviews on pioneer (caution there was only 2 for the pioneer):
http://electronics.pricegrabber.com...h=pioneer+301+dvd+changer/st=product/sv=title

I can't say enough good things about the Pioneer. I just love my setup. I have these 2 changers, 2 Tivo series 3, 1 old series 2 tivo, a panasonic dvd recorder with a 400 gig hard drive (which can record off the tivos or the pioneer), all powered with a Denon receiver w/Ipod. Now the cool part, the video signal can be sent to any of my 10 tvs. I have a video switch that will send either cable, dvd, or tivo to any of those tvs. How do I have 10 tvs you ask. One in each of the 4 bedrooms, one in the master bath at the foot of the jacuzzi tub, one in the garage, one in the back yard,, one in my shop, living room, and one in the tuner of my desktop.

Yes, quite the hobby!


----------



## nrnoble (Aug 25, 2004)

Shanezam203 said:


> Does anyone have expierance with Handbreak, does that rip a DVD and easily play it on the Tivo?


I strictly use AnyDVD and VideoRedo. Movies playback perfectly (Full digital audio) on the TiVo HD. AnyDVD rip time is about 5-8 minutes. About 5 minutes for VideoRedo to create a mpeg2 movie file. Been doing this for several years now without any problems.


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> I think Handbrake is a bad choice if your ultimate goal is to play the files on your TiVo.


I agree.



Dan203 said:


> In fact there really isn't a good way to rip DVDs and play them on your TiVo.


Well, that depends on what one considers "good". It's far from perfect, and unfortunately I don't think the developer is working on it any more, but the DVD plug-in for pyTivo works fairly well. It definitely could use further development, but it mostly suits my purposes well enough. It definitely faster and easier than recoding or even transcoding.



Dan203 said:


> The biggest problem when converting from DVD to TiVo is actually the subtitles. DVDs store subtitles in a format which only DVD players understand. So the only way to display them on your TiVo is to recode the video and burn the subtitles right into the video. Now you may think that you don't need the subtitles, but trust me you do. A LOT of movies use the subtitle track of a DVD to actually store subtitles which are necessary to the enjoyment of the movie. For example these "forced subtitles" are used for when the aliens speak in Star Wars, and without them the movie becomes unwatchable in parts.


Hmm. You know, I don't think a single one of my rips has these types of subtitles. All of my Star Wars episodes, for example, were recorded from the CATV system. I don't really have all that many rips, when it comes down to it. I have HD recordings of most of the titles I have on DVD. Other than that, I only have 65 titles ripped from DVDs on my server.



Dan203 said:


> There is also the issue with frame rates. DVDs tend to use a lot of repeat frames to convert 24fps film to 29.97fps NTSC. Older TiVos don't always handle these very well.


Oh, well, I have S3 and THD TiVos.



Dan203 said:


> I personally think you're better off with a 400 dics changer.


I disagree. I have a 400 Disc changer. It never gets used. Until theBayer came out with the DVD plug-in, I virtually quit watching my DVDs altogether. It's just too much of a hassle, especially with many hundreds of titles available right from the TiVo NPL. YMMV, of course.


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Shanezam203 said:


> I found a Sony 400 disc DVD changer for cheap, I will try that & see if I can easily label the titles. It's nice there is a PS2 input for keyboard entry.


Yeah, but it's a royal pain to use.


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Solman said:


> Before buying my pioneer 301 DVD, I researched both the Pioneer and Sony and some a lot of bad consumer reviews on the sony...





Solman said:


> I was shocked that Sony had such bad feedback, which included destroying dvds. I have a lot of sony components and was really dissappointed when I read reviews. Tread carefully-many people regret ever owning it after the damage it did.


Yeah, I had one that did that. I didn't know it until I had to replace it with a new unit. The damage, however, was in every case recoverable. The mechanism scraped the surface of a number of DVDs, but not deep enough to reach the metallic layers. I was able to polish the scrapes out well enough to make the disks playable.


----------



## noseph (Oct 13, 2003)

I prefer watching my movies streamed to my S3. I use to have a Sony 400 Disc Changer, it was a pain to use, it had a flawed indexing feature (I had to maintain a spreadsheet with movies and slot in order to find anything). I also quickly out grew the Sony's capacity and gave the unit to a Movie Buff friend.

I invested the time and ripped my 800+ collection to VOB with DVDFab, then processed the VOBs thru VideoRedo QuickStreamFix. Finally processing the resulting MPG with WinFF to get a suitable MP4 that I can stream from my 3TB Synology NAS to my S3.

I stream with StreamBaby running on an ASRock ION 330 HTPC.


----------



## windracer (Jan 3, 2003)

noseph said:


> I invested the time and ripped my 800+ collection to VOB with DVDFab, then processed the VOBs thru VideoRedo QuickStreamFix. Finally processing the resulting MPG with WinFF to get a suitable MP4 that I can stream from my 3TB Synology NAS to my S3.


Ha .. that's _exactly_ what I do (DVDFab -> QSF -> WinFF -> MP4).  And it works pretty good except for the aforementioned subtitles issue.


----------



## noseph (Oct 13, 2003)

The toughest thing to figure out was the correct the correct preset command line to use with WinFF to maintain the AC3 audio, here is what I use -

-f mp4 -r 29.97 -vcodec libx264 -s 704x384 -b 1000kb -aspect 16:9 -flags +loop -cmp +chroma -deblockalpha 0 -deblockbeta 0 -b 1250k -maxrate 1500k -bufsize 4M -bt 256k -refs 1 -bf 3 -coder 1 -me_method umh -me_range 16 -subq 7 -partitions +parti4x4+parti8x8+partp8x8+partb8x8 -g 250 -keyint_min 25 -level 30 -qmin 10 -qmax 51 -qcomp 0.6 -trellis 2 -sc_threshold 40 -i_qfactor 0.71 -acodec copy -ab 112kb -ar 48000

The above is all one line.


----------



## windracer (Jan 3, 2003)

Thanks, I'll give that a try. I've been using the MPEG-4 high-quality preset.


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

windracer said:


> Ha .. that's _exactly_ what I do (DVDFab -> QSF -> WinFF -> MP4).  And it works pretty good except for the aforementioned subtitles issue.


That's an awful lot of processing. I just rip using DVD Decrypter to my DVD share directory.


----------



## windracer (Jan 3, 2003)

lrhorer said:


> That's an awful lot of processing. I just rip using DVD Decrypter to my DVD share directory.


True, but I've found straight DVD ripping to be unreliable so the QSF step is just a safety net. Then the MP4 conversion is just to save some space.


----------



## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

I picked up a Sony 301 disc DVD player for $50 and it's working fine. :up:

Shane


----------



## PaJo (Dec 17, 2001)

We do have a Sony 400 disc changer and it is nice but a little tedious getting to the right dvd. Using the HD Tivo via pyTivo or our little Asus O!Play is much nicer, most time we use the Sony when we want to watch the extras on the dvd. I like Winff but prefer Handbrake for dvd backups.

Although the Winff settings posted previously in this thread work on my Kubuntu Maverick system, the encoding is really slow, about 2 fps.

I can use Handbrake 0.9.5 (also free) with the default or "normal" x264 settings and get about 10-14 fps with great quality. Handbrake has AC3 pass through audio option and our HD Tivo & Sony receiver likes the finished .m4v files with 5.1 sound. I prefer to change the default "constant quality" bit rate setting from 20 ( which is recommended for dvd ripping) to 16 or 17 which does produce a bigger file, but it is still less than half the size of the original dvd mpeg2 file.

The Handbrake website is:

http://handbrake.fr/

On edit: Some movies I still prefer to keep as mpg/vob just as we have some complete dvds backed up as .iso file. As you know the .iso does not play on the HD Tivo but we can play the .iso files on the Asus O!PLay, but even that will not play all the extras , some times the menu options for the extras will not play, but the movie and scene selections etc work OK.


----------



## mchief (Sep 10, 2005)

I rip (mostly blu-rays now) with AnyDVD and then use DVDFab to extract movie only. The movie is copied to a bare HDD in a dock. Another dock is attached via USB to a Patriot Box Office media server. Just move the HDD to the dock and away we go including subtitles. Nothing I have thrown at the Box Office has failed to play. TIVO is now for TV recording.


----------



## PaJo (Dec 17, 2001)

I keep a usb drive hooked up to the Asus player and use the ftp server to copy the files to it, the Asus does have a file manager, but it is much slower than just using ftp in the background. I usually use the latest beta of DVDFAB and it has not failed to copy any dvd, and as with others I use the VOB pass through option for a single file to send to the HDTIVO as well as the Asus, and it is pretty fast - even if you process the file with something like VideoRedo quick stream fix it only takes 10-15 minutes. However, it does save room to compress the finished files, and that is where Handbrake comes into play.


----------



## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

PaJo said:


> I keep a usb drive hooked up to the Asus player and use the ftp server to copy the files to it, the Asus does have a file manager, but it is much slower than just using ftp in the background. I usually use the latest beta of DVDFAB and it has not failed to copy any dvd, and as with others I use the VOB pass through option for a single file to send to the HDTIVO as well as the Asus, and it is pretty fast - even if you process the file with something like VideoRedo quick stream fix it only takes 10-15 minutes. However, it does save room to compress the finished files, and that is where Handbrake comes into play.


I tried that with a WD player but it doesn't play all the formats my movies are in.


----------



## aDarkling (Feb 19, 2011)

Just a thought here, but has anyone tried setting up a fileserver with an extensible drive array? A couple reasons for this:

It's cheaper. Hard drives run about $.04 to $.08 per GB, versus $.08 to $.19 per GB for DVDs;

Less space: a 1 TB drive is much smaller than 227 DVDs;

Power consumption can be mitigated by setting the drives to sleep until accessed;

and subtitles won't be a problem anymore since you don't even have to reencode the files!


----------



## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

Some DVD's are not allowing me to copy them with Handbrake, it's saying copy write protected. are there any ways around that?

I'd like to copy the DVD to my PC, and then put it in my Tivo Recordings folder...


----------



## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

Personally, I use AnyDVD. It costs money, but it is constantly updated to handle new encryption methods.
http://www.slysoft.com/en/

I've used DVD43 in the past. It's free, but it doesn't always work.

http://www.dvd43.com/


----------



## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

As mentioned above- rip with the free dvd fab and then run through handbrake.


----------



## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

jrtroo said:


> As mentioned above- rip with the free dvd fab and then run through handbrake.


trying that now... thanks


----------



## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

jrtroo said:


> As mentioned above- rip with the free dvd fab and then run through handbrake.


Ripped it with DVD Fab and now I have 5 seperate .vobs and another empty folder for audio. What do I do from here?


----------



## pmiranda (Feb 12, 2003)

You can use dvd shrink to write back out the main title with a single >1GB VOB. I don't know DVD Fab, but it might have a similar option to not break the VOB at 1GB chunks.


----------



## MikeMar (Jan 7, 2005)

in DVDFab, you could also have it write it right to an ISO file if you want


----------



## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

MikeMar said:


> in DVDFab, you could also have it write it right to an ISO file if you want


and not break it up every 1 gig?


----------



## Leon WIlkinson (Feb 13, 2000)

I just bought AnyDVD after using the trail for 21 days.  but however it's all .


----------



## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

I use Magic DVD and to archive my DVD's and play using my TiVo's. 

The product works great - I know it can be an issue for people that need subtitles, but that is not an issue for me.


----------



## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

The next step is not that hard.

Point handbrake to the folder with the VOBs. It will put them together and create your file. Normally the first item it picks is the main movie itself.

While you can stitch it together beforehand, there is no need.


----------



## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

yep, that is working fine. is there anyway to turn off in DVD Fab the 1gig separation? 

Its taking a DVD and seperating it into 4 or 5 files less than a gig each. any way to disable that?


----------



## MikeMar (Jan 7, 2005)

there SHOULD be an option in the settings. Have you combed through the entire settings in dvdFab?


----------



## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

MikeMar said:


> there SHOULD be an option in the settings. Have you combed through the entire settings in dvdFab?


couldnt see it anywhere in options or settings, no. just trying to trim 1 step, IF it stayed in 1 file, I wouldnt need Handbrake because I upgraded to Desktop Plus...

Thanks,
Shane


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

aDarkling said:


> Just a thought here, but has anyone tried setting up a fileserver with an extensible drive array? A couple reasons for this:
> 
> It's cheaper. Hard drives run about $.04 to $.08 per GB, versus $.08 to $.19 per GB for DVDs;
> 
> ...


Yeah, lots of people, including me. I have a RAID6 server currently composed of eight 3T spindles, delivering a total of 18T of storage. Most of that storage is not used for DVDs (by a long shot), since I only have about 90 DVD rips on the array, but I still do have them on the array, along with a couple of thousand HD videos.


----------



## MikeMar (Jan 7, 2005)

Yeah me too, 4 x 1.5TB - 4 or so usable TB on a NAS
3 TB used up for almost strickly DVD/BR rips, TV Shows, and Music

All stream to my Boxee Box


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Shanezam203 said:


> yep, that is working fine. is there anyway to turn off in DVD Fab the 1gig separation?
> 
> Its taking a DVD and seperating it into 4 or 5 files less than a gig each. any way to disable that?


Actually, it's not separating anything. The DVD spec calls for files no larger than 1G. IF you look on your DVD, you will see a number of 1G files and perhaps a few smaller ones. Changing it to one file requires splicing them all together.

Here is just one more advantage of using pyTivo. Using the DVD plug-in, one need not transcode or splice the files at all. One merely decrypts them and writes them to the hard drive in raw .VOB format. The DVD plug-in then presents any of the titles on the disk you wish to the NPL or to vidmgr. By creating metafiles and album art, one can get very creative with the presentation to the TiVo.


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

MikeMar said:


> Yeah me too, 4 x 1.5TB - 4 or so usable TB on a NAS
> 3 TB used up for almost strickly DVD/BR rips, TV Shows, and Music
> 
> All stream to my Boxee Box


Yeah, that's another advantage for some users. They can be served to the TiVo, but one is not limited to the TiVo platform. I don't personally take advantage of the ability, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing so.


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

jrtroo said:


> As mentioned above- rip with the free dvd fab and then run through handbrake.


I just rip the entire directory structure to the array and use the pyTivo DVD plug in. I'm using DVD_Decrypter, but DVD Fab should also work just fine. No need for Handbrake.


----------



## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

I use handbrake to reduce the file size, I don't care about the extras, and put in a single format that works with both my TiVo and my Xoom.

Though, I never used the dvd plug in, may need to give that a try.


----------



## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

I take a DVD
Put it in DVD Fab (that separates it in 1gig VOB)
Handbrake then combines all VOB in a folder to 1 file.

Then I put the file from Handbrake in My Tivo Recordings
Then I can transfer from the Tivo.


----------



## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Yep.

The paid version of DVDfab _may _have a feature to combine them into one file, but I never have paid for it and never explored it further. I normally rip a bunch of disks and then let them all process them through handbrake overnight.


----------



## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

jrtroo said:


> Yep.
> 
> The paid version of DVDfab _may _have a feature to combine them into one file, but I never have paid for it and never explored it further. I normally rip a bunch of disks and then let them all process them through handbrake overnight.


yep, thats what I am preparing now. Thanks for the help.


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Shanezam203 said:


> I take a DVD
> Put it in DVD Fab (that separates it in 1gig VOB)


Once again, DVD Fab doesn't separate anything. That is the existing structure on the DVD. Directly from one of my DVDs (not a rip):


```
RAID-Server:/media/HER_ALIBI_NTSC_4X3_FF/VIDEO_TS# ll
total 4110978
dr-x------ 2 root root        508 Sep 10  1998 .
dr-x------ 3 root root         88 Sep 10  1998 ..
-r-------- 1 root root       8192 Sep 10  1998 VIDEO_TS.BUP
-r-------- 1 root root       8192 Sep 10  1998 VIDEO_TS.IFO
-r-------- 1 root root      69632 Sep 10  1998 VTS_01_0.BUP
-r-------- 1 root root      69632 Sep 10  1998 VTS_01_0.IFO
-r-------- 1 root root     450560 Sep 10  1998 VTS_01_0.VOB
-r-------- 1 root root 1073739776 Sep 10  1998 VTS_01_1.VOB
-r-------- 1 root root 1073739776 Sep 10  1998 VTS_01_2.VOB
-r-------- 1 root root 1073739776 Sep 10  1998 VTS_01_3.VOB
-r-------- 1 root root  987811840 Sep 10  1998 VTS_01_4.VOB
```



Shanezam203 said:


> Handbrake then combines all VOB in a folder to 1 file.


Yes, but it is not an absolutely necessary step.



Shanezam203 said:


> Then I put the file from Handbrake in My Tivo Recordings
> Then I can transfer from the Tivo.


That indeed may be sufficient for many users and with most DVDs. It's not quite that simple if:


You want the use of extended features
It is a multi-title DVD
The default audio track is not the one you want
You wish to use album art
You wish to make use of meta text

In short, you won't get anything like the following on your TiVo:


----------



## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

Real nice with Album Art, wow.


----------



## larrs (May 2, 2005)

Shanezam203 said:


> Real nice with Album Art, wow.


OK, I am ready to go to that album art/description setup. Any step by step wikis out there?


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

larrs said:


> OK, I am ready to go to that album art/description setup. Any step by step wikis out there?


No, I don't think so. The first step will be downloading and installing HME for Python. Once you have that working, you will need to download and install vidmgr. Getting those two working minimally is not really difficult. I suggest you read the vidmgr thread and this thread over in the HME Developers forum for tips.

Once that is all good, the real work starts. Vidmgr is not difficult to configure, but there are a *TON* of options that allow the user to modify the look and feel of the app to taste, as well as a few performace tuning options. One can leave everything as default, but I expect most users will want to personalize the app. I posted my config in this post.

Once everything is working the way you want, the rest is just gathering together the album art and editing the metafiles to suit one's needs. That is an ongoing process, as long as one continues to add content to the server.


----------



## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

Holy cow, lrhorer. Do I have to ask if you have all that info backed up?

I'd hate to do all that work and have it go *poof* with a catastrophic failure.


----------



## larrs (May 2, 2005)

Shanezam203 said:


> yep, that is working fine. is there anyway to turn off in DVD Fab the 1gig separation?
> 
> Its taking a DVD and seperating it into 4 or 5 files less than a gig each. any way to disable that?


Just go get DVDShrink, which is free and it will rip 90% of the titles as is. Since it has not been updated in years, it will not rip about 10% of discs. It has the setting to put everything into one VOB. For that other 10%, use DVDFab first and then run through DVDShrink. Takes an additional 5 minutes or less.

Oh, and by the way, you can either leave the file as a VOB and play it on the Tivo, or just change the extension to .mpg (works 80% of the time). There are some caveats with it though; like it doesn't play correctly in Windows Media player, for example and from time to time there will be no sound when played on a Tivo. So, to keep things working perfectly, you need to run it through another program (like VideoRedo- excellent program and is from a long time tivo user on the boards; not free but worth every penny). Again, takes less than 5 minutes.


----------



## larrs (May 2, 2005)

lrhorer said:


> No, I don't think so. The first step will be downloading and installing HME for Python. Once you have that working, you will need to download and install vidmgr. Getting those two working minimally is not really difficult. I suggest you read the vidmgr thread and this thread over in the HME Developers forum for tips.
> 
> Once that is all good, the real work starts. Vidmgr is not difficult to configure, but there are a *TON* of options that allow the user to modify the look and feel of the app to taste, as well as a few performace tuning options. One can leave everything as default, but I expect most users will want to personalize the app. I posted my config in this post.
> 
> Once everything is working the way you want, the rest is just gathering together the album art and editing the metafiles to suit one's needs. That is an ongoing process, as long as one continues to add content to the server.


Well- thanks to you over in the developer's thread, I am using HME and vidmgr. So what is the next step, parameters, etc. on getting the album art and descriptions to show up?


----------



## poppagene (Dec 29, 2001)

According to the Dvdfab forums:

The only way to arrive at a single VOB file is to use VOB Passthrough in the DVD to Mobile module. This will strip all the DVD structure and leave you with a single video and audio stream. Make sure to disable the split option.

Click where it says "DVD to Mobile" on the left side of DVDFab and then click "VOB" There may be a bit more depending on your installation.


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

larrs said:


> Well- thanks to you over in the developer's thread, I am using HME and vidmgr. So what is the next step, parameters, etc. on getting the album art and descriptions to show up?


Well, it's a little different for DVDs than for regular videos. For either one, simply create a flat text metafile for the descriptions, etc., and for the album art create a picture file. The metafile will have an extension of .txt and the picture file will have an extension of .jpg. There are a number of utilities out there such as MetaGen that can find videos and automatically create the metafile. Album art can be scraped from any one of a number of websites that provide DVD album art and saved as .jpg files.

The difference between DVDs and videos lies in the naming and directory structure. For a regular video file with a name like Video.mpg, simply name the metafile Video.mpg.txt (MetaGen does this automatically), and name the album art Video.mpg.jpg, and place them both in the same directory with the main Video.mpg file. That's really all there is to it.

DVDs are a little different. First of all, the videos themselves don't have names related to the content, and there are several of them for a single DVD, all in the VIDEO_TS directory. Let us say the parent directory is called DVD_Name. If DVD_Name directory is empty except for the presence of the VIDEO_TS directory (and perhaps an AUDIO_TS directory), then the DVD name in pyTiVo and vidmgr will simply be "DVD_Name", and there will be no album art or descriptions in vidmgr. There will, however, be a number of titles - perhaps as many as 50 or more - listed under the DVD_Name DVD. They will be labeled Title 0, Title 1, Title 2, etc. Title 0 is the longest video on the DVD, which in most, but not all, cases will be the main title.

If you create an album art file named default.jpg, but no other art, then the main folder and all the titles will bear the picture from that art file. You can, however, create the default.jpg file to be displayed when selecting the main directory in vidmgr, and additional unique files named __T00.mpg.jpg, __T01.mpg.jpg, __T02.mpg.jpg, etc. to be displayed when selecting Title 0, Title 1, Title 2, etc., respectively. Thus you can have separate album art for each title, if you so desire.

Meanwhile, the main metafile is named default.txt. Once again the dontents of this file are displayed as the description for the main folder and for any title that does not have its own metafile. The individual metafiles are named __T00.mpg.txt, __T01.mpg.txt, __T02.mpg.txt, etc. The main metafile can contain an important global feature. The user can rename each title from Title 1, Title 2, etc. to something more appropriate, plus the user can force pyTivo and vidmgr to ignore any unwanted titles using the special keyword "ignore". This is the default.txt metafile from my Alfred Hitchcock DVD containing The 39 Steps and The Ghost Goes West:


```
movieYear : 1935
description : Robert Donat stars in two 1935 films, Alfred Hitchcock's "The 39 Steps" and René Clair's comedy "The Ghost Goes West".
Title 0: Ignore
Title 1: Ignore
Title 2: The Ghost Goes West
Title 3: The 39 Steps
isEpisode : true
```
As mentioned above, one can also create __T00.mpg.txt, __T01.mpg.txt, etc. individual metafiles for each title of interest. Thus from, the same DVD I have:

__T02.mpg.txt:


```
title : The Ghost Goes West
movieYear : 1935
description : An American businessman's family convinces him to buy a Scottish castle and disassemble it to ship it to America brick by brick, where it will be put it back together. The castle though is not the only part of the deal, with it goes the several-hundred year old ghost who haunts it.
starRating : x5
mpaaRating : N8
vProgramGenre : Comedy
vProgramGenre : Fantasy
vProgramGenre : Horror
vProgramGenre : Romance
vDirector : Rene Clair
vWriter : Rene Clair
vWriter : Eric Keown
vWriter : Geoffrey Kerr
vWriter : Robert E. Sherwood
vActor : Robert Donat
vActor : Jean Parker
vActor : Eugene Pallette
vActor : Elsa Lanchester
vActor : Ralph Bunker
vActor : Patricia Hilliard
vActor : Everley Gregg
vActor : Morton Selten
vActor : Chili Bouchier
vActor : Mark Daly
```
and __T03.mpg.txt:


```
title : The 39 Steps
movieYear : 1935
description : Richard Hannay is vacationing in England when he gets caught in a web of mystery. Shots ring out at a show, and a terrified woman begs Hannay to help her. He's certain she's crazy -- until she appears at his flat with a map in hand and a knife in her back, muttering something about 39 steps. Eluding the police, Hannay travels through Scotland to unearth the truth.
starRating : x5
mpaaRating : N8
vProgramGenre : Classic
vProgramGenre : Thriller
vProgramGenre : Mystery
vProgramGenre : Drama
vDirector : Alfred Hitchcock
vActor : Robert Donat
vActor : Madeleine Carroll
vActor : Lucie Mannheim
vActor : Godfrey Tearle
vActor : Peggy Ashcroft
vActor : John Laurie
vActor : Helen Haye
vActor : Frank Cellier
vActor : Wylie Watson
vActor : Peggy Simpson
```


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

steve614 said:


> Holy cow, lrhorer. Do I have to ask if you have all that info backed up?
> 
> I'd hate to do all that work and have it go *poof* with a catastrophic failure.


I do. Mirroring the primary server is an almost identical backup server with its own array. Every morning at 04:00, the backup server runs a cron job that causes rsync to copy any new or updated files on the primary server's array over to the backup server's array.

In addition, I use dar to create an offline archive of the backup server's array on hard drives that is incrementally updated every couple of months and the hard drives are stored off site.

Finally, any critical data, such as financial files, are backed up at every use to the local workstation which accesses the data.

If there were any catastophe large enough to take them all out, losing my files would be the least of my problems.

OTOH, I did once have one of the arrays go, "Croak". As it happens, it was the backup array not the primary, but the point still holds. I had just started an array re-configuration about an hour before a power outage took down the server. After the power outage, I brought the server back up, brought the array back on line, and re-started the reshape. To this day, I have no idea why, but for some reason after another 30 minutes or so, the machine just locked up. This time when I brought the array back up, I had to force re-assembly and then start the reshape again. When the reshape was done, I tested the integrity of the files. Every file larger than 16K in size was corrupted.


----------



## larrs (May 2, 2005)

lrhorer said:


> Well, it's a little different for DVDs than for regular videos. For either one, simply create a flat text metafile for the descriptions, etc., and for the album art create a picture file. The metafile will have an extension of .txt and the picture file will have an extension of .jpg. There are a number of utilities out there such as MetaGen that can find videos and automatically create the metafile. Album art can be scraped from any one of a number of websites that provide DVD album art and saved as .jpg files.
> 
> The difference between DVDs and videos lies in the naming and directory structure. For a regular video file with a name like Video.mpg, simply name the metafile Video.mpg.txt (MetaGen does this automatically), and name the album art Video.mpg.jpg, and place them both in the same directory with the main Video.mpg file. That's really all there is to it.
> 
> ...


I probably missed something, but I tried this yesterday for a bit with a video. I created a text file with the appropriate info about one of my videos, National Lampoon Vacation.mpg. I labeled the text file as National Lampoon Vacation.mpg.txt, but I see nothing from my vidmgr app when I choose that file, even when I press info on the tivo remote. Did I miss a step?


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

It doesn't sound like a missed step, more like a typo or a directory issue. Make sure the file name of the video is precisely "National Lampoon Vacation.mpg" and the name of the metafile is precisely "National Lampoon Vacation.mpg.txt". Make sure both files are in the same directory. Finally, make sure the metafile has the proper format. Each metafield has a tag followed by a space, a colon, and another space, like this:

vActor : John Wayne

The description text and the actor and director categories should show up in the NPL. If so, and it still does not show up in vidmgr, let us know.


----------



## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

Strange, I am able to transfer majority of my media from my PC to my Tivo, but today it's been freezing and rebooting when I attempt to transfer a DVD.

Restart the Tivo and Desktop Plus? Also my Tivo freezes if I queue up a 2nd file from my PC, it freezes at "Will Transfer Later" after I press select. If I push the Tivo button, it doesnt freeze.


----------



## larrs (May 2, 2005)

lrhorer said:


> It doesn't sound like a missed step, more like a typo or a directory issue. Make sure the file name of the video is precisely "National Lampoon Vacation.mpg" and the name of the metafile is precisely "National Lampoon Vacation.mpg.txt". Make sure both files are in the same directory. Finally, make sure the metafile has the proper format. Each metafield has a tag followed by a space, a colon, and another space, like this:
> 
> vActor : John Wayne
> 
> The description text and the actor and director categories should show up in the NPL. If so, and it still does not show up in vidmgr, let us know.


Success! That was it, I actually ended up with an extra space in the text file (I will be copy and pasting the file name from now on). I now have at least got it working- and including the cover art. Thanks for the help (again).

My next job is to try to get MetaGen working to keep from keying in all this on my files. I found the program over at sourcecode.com but it looked less than user intuative- I'll need to figure that out or I'll have a bunch of typing...
*
I'll also say this- you should get these instructions sticky'ed somewhere around here. This is just a super cool thing that a lot of folks probably don't know about.*


----------



## larrs (May 2, 2005)

Shanezam203 said:


> Strange, I am able to transfer majority of my media from my PC to my Tivo, but today it's been freezing and rebooting when I attempt to transfer a DVD.
> 
> Restart the Tivo and Desktop Plus? Also my Tivo freezes if I queue up a 2nd file from my PC, it freezes at "Will Transfer Later" after I press select. If I push the Tivo button, it doesnt freeze.


Look, I will tell you what many told me over the years: go get pyTivo instead of Tivo Desktop. I didn't do it until recently and I am sorry I did not listen.

Tivo Desktop (and I own the plus version I paid for) gave me all sorts of errors including having to reboot my server quite often. With pyTivo, I have had no issues at all.


----------



## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

Shanezam203 said:


> Strange, I am able to transfer majority of my media from my PC to my Tivo, but today it's been freezing and rebooting when I attempt to transfer a DVD.
> 
> Restart the Tivo and Desktop Plus? Also my Tivo freezes if I queue up a 2nd file from my PC, it freezes at "Will Transfer Later" after I press select. If I push the Tivo button, it doesnt freeze.


What software did you use to rip the DVD?
What file format is the ripped video file in?

If you don't already have VideoReDo, download and register it for the free trial, and then use the Quick Stream Fix tool on the video file that you're having problems with.

http://www.videoredo.com/en/index.htm


----------



## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

Shanezam203 said:


> yep, that is working fine. is there anyway to turn off in DVD Fab the 1gig separation?
> 
> Its taking a DVD and seperating it into 4 or 5 files less than a gig each. any way to disable that?


Yes, but not in the free version. The ability to choose only the main feature and write it out as a single vob file is in the paid mobile version.


----------



## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

Thanks JC Thorne. 1 last question.

I am transferring over some media using Tivo Desktop Manager and it quickly transfers a video or movie clip from my PC to my Tivo Premiere. Is there ANY way to title the files on my PC in a way they will show up on my Tivo in "Now Playing" similar to a Series or Season Pass?

*Folder Name: Oceans 11, 12 & 13 (3)*

In it is:

Ocean's 11
Oceans 12
Oceans 13

I've tried multiple different titling conventions and I can not get them into a folder. Similar to Comedy Central Roasts, originally they were in a folder on my Tivo and it said Comedy Central Roast [ 7 ] and I could Play that folder or go inside and see the Individual roasts. Is there ANY way to do that with my media on my PC, I am having a hard time.

Thanks, 
Shane


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Doing a push in pyTivo (or vidmgr) can accomplish this. I don't know if there is a way using TiVo Desktop. It's too badly broken for me to bother with any testing.


----------



## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

lrhorer said:


> Doing a push in pyTivo (or vidmgr) can accomplish this. I don't know if there is a way using TiVo Desktop. It's too badly broken for me to bother with any testing.


I tried transferring back recordings from my Tivo for the Comedy Central Roast that WERE in a folder originally on the Tivo, but after using Tivo Desktop to transfer from the PC, they do not make it back into a folder, every Comedy Central Roast is a separate recording in my Tivo Central... :down:


----------



## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

larrs said:


> Well- thanks to you over in the developer's thread, I am using HME and vidmgr. So what is the next step, parameters, etc. on getting the album art and descriptions to show up?


head over to the pytivo forum and readup and download a utility called MetaGenerator. Makes the process of building all the meta files and art much less painful. Much of it automated.


----------



## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

Shanezam203 said:


> Thanks JC Thorne. 1 last question.
> 
> I am transferring over some media using Tivo Desktop Manager and it quickly transfers a video or movie clip from my PC to my Tivo Premiere. Is there ANY way to title the files on my PC in a way they will show up on my Tivo in "Now Playing" similar to a Series or Season Pass?
> 
> ...


In tivodesktop, no. In pytivo with correct metadata absolutely. One of the many reasons to drop tivodesktop.


----------



## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

jcthorne said:


> In tivodesktop, no. In pytivo with correct metadata absolutely. One of the many reasons to drop tivodesktop.


Thanks. anyone want to join a gotomeeting & help me set it up on my machine? :up: I'll float ya the $25 I paid Tivo for the upgrade for Plus.


----------



## larrs (May 2, 2005)

jcthorne said:


> head over to the pytivo forum and readup and download a utility called MetaGenerator. Makes the process of building all the meta files and art much less painful. Much of it automated.


Thanks for this. I was looking around for MetaGen. What I found looked pretty hard to use and had only 4 downloads. Metagenerator on the other hand took less than 5 minutes....a great tool!

Thanks again.


----------



## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

Shanezam203 said:


> Thanks. anyone want to join a gotomeeting & help me set it up on my machine? :up: I'll float ya the $25 I paid Tivo for the upgrade for Plus.


Its really not that hard to set up. Take a look at the wiki link in my sig and follow the steps. If you have any troubles, start a new thread here and ask for help. Lots of folks here have been there and done that and willing to help.


----------



## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

I got the 300 disc changer and now I'm curious about backing up my media electronically... 

Any estimate how much space 100 DVD's would take up after copying to a PC or Mac using Handbreak?


----------



## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

Well, if you wanted the entire contents of each DVD with menus etc, figure an average of 6GB x 100 = 600GB

Since you say using Handbrake, which is an encode platform, I assume you intend to extract the movie only and re-encode to h.264. For this scenario assume about 1.6GB per movie or 160 GB for your 100.

No exact science here but these are close to averages I have seen. A lot depends on your selections for ripping and encoding.


----------



## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

160 gig is manageable, I don't need sub titles or anything else... I may try to backup a few and play with the size and settings, thanks.


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Shanezam203 said:


> I got the 300 disc changer and now I'm curious about backing up my media electronically...
> 
> Any estimate how much space 100 DVD's would take up after copying to a PC or Mac using Handbreak?


Handbreak is one option, but I prefer simply ripping directly to the hard drive and using pyTivo's DVD plug-in. It's quite flexible. OF course, one does not then get the advantage of recoding to h.264.


----------

