How do I view episodic DVDs from my media player

[ram1009]

I've taken GregiBoy's suggestion and begun to copy DVDs to my HDD and then watch them remotely on my media player. It works OK until you copy something with episodes and then there's no way to discern one episode from another. Anybody got an idea?

[maineman]

I've taken GregiBoy's suggestion and begun to copy DVDs to my HDD and then watch them remotely on my media player.

Excellent idea.
I simply rename the files for my Argosy MP, but I guess to a large extent it depends on your MP's capabilities/menu functions.

[ram1009]

Well, I know I can RIP the files one at a time and give them individual names but that's very time consuming. I don't think there's much the MP can do with file names or structure.

[GregiBoy]

Fab can discern the individual titles and can name the files accordingly.

That is if they are authored as individual titles!!!!

The big challenge is to identify & name them correctly and the only way to do this is to play the rip of the dvd in a softplayer such as VLC and play each episode from the menu and note which title equates to which episode.

I then use this naming convention so that they will play in order on most players:-

Series Season Episode - Name eg Haven S01E02 - Fire on the Water

[ram1009]

Fab can discern the individual titles and can name the files accordingly.

That is if they are authored as individual titles!!!!

The big challenge is to identify & name them correctly and the only way to do this is to play the rip of the dvd in a softplayer such as VLC and play each episode from the menu and note which title equates to which episode.

I then use this naming convention so that they will play in order on most players:-

Series Season Episode - Name eg Haven S01E02 - Fire on the Water

It's easy enough to tell which title & chapter is for each episode. You can do that from the "main movie" mode of DVD COPY, however once you return to "full disk" mode there are no titles or chapters to discern or any way to name anything except the full RIP. I've never seen any episodes authored individually, so if that's the criteria I guess the answer to my question is "NO, you can't do that". Do you agree?

[AGJ]

Doing full disc you can not do that but then you have the full DVD on HDD. Are you not able to view the menu on your media player? The menu will tell you what episode is and you select the one you want that way. If you want to view each episode individually then you will need to try either customize or Customize Split to see if they do what you want

[GregiBoy]

You are obviously not thinking clearly about this!!!

1. Copy full disk to HDD.
2. Open HDD copy with "DVD Ripper"

You should be able to see all the different titles.

It's easy enough to tell which title & chapter is for each episode. You can do that from the "main movie" mode of DVD COPY, however once you return to "full disk" mode there are no titles or chapters to discern or any way to name anything except the full RIP. I've never seen any episodes authored individually, so if that's the criteria I guess the answer to my question is "NO, you can't do that". Do you agree?

[maineman]

I've taken GregiBoy's suggestion and begun to copy DVDs to my HDD and then watch them remotely on my media player.

Ahh, apparently taking GregiBoy's advice only went so far.
If you use DVD Ripper (aka DVD to Mobile) as suggested, you can batch files.
Once ripped to a hdd, you can queue up multiple episodes, even seasons of a show like NCIS, Criminal Minds, Dexter, etc., click start and go to bed...

[signals]

If you have PathPlayer enabled, the titles will appear in DVD playback order on the title lists in any of the re-author modes (Customize, Main Movie, Merge, Customize Split) and on the title list in Ripper. That still won't get them renamed for you without manual intervention. Probably faster to use the naming control masks in Common Settings and set it up to name the DVD Ripper output files like this:

<Volume>.<Title> (if the DVD has a title per episode) or
<Volume>.<Chapter> (for those that only have a "play all" title)

This will work well if the Source DVD has a volume name that makes sense. If not, you can "pre-process" it with DVDFab to set the volume name to exactly what you want, e.g. for the Lost discs, set the volume name to "LOST_S1_D1" using Full Disc or Customize. Then batch run it through Ripper and your output files will be named "LOST_S1_D1.Title(1,2,3 etc).MP4".

[ram1009]

Ahh, apparently taking GregiBoy's advice only went so far.
If you use DVD Ripper (aka DVD to Mobile) as suggested, you can batch files.
Once ripped to a hdd, you can queue up multiple episodes, even seasons of a show like NCIS, Criminal Minds, Dexter, etc., click start and go to bed...

I can't take advice I haven't yet been given and this is the first time I've tried storing episodes of anything. I thank all of you for your suggestions which are all basically the same, however I like my first idea the best mostly because it doesn't involve a piece of software I haven't bought yet (ripper). It takes less than 3 minutes to rip a 43 minute episode to HDD using the "main movie" mode of DVD COPY and I can name it whatever I like and store it where ever I like. I chose to use Windows to make a primary folder with the same name as the disk being ripped and then store each episode in it with an individual name. I think it's the simplest and quickest way to get the menu structure I need to view on my MP. Thanks again to all.

[maineman]

True, it's difficult to take advice you've not been given.
Hard to believe GregiBoy missed posting his conversion sermon in any of his media player posts, but we're all entitled to a brain fart here and there,
especially at our age...

Anyway, glad that you could figure it out.
I'm not pushing products here, but if you find conserving space becomes more important to you, you'll find that certain profiles for file conversions
will maintain excellent video quality and yet reduce your file size to 20-25% of the original files

[ram1009]

True, it's difficult to take advice you've not been given.
Hard to believe GregiBoy missed posting his conversion sermon in any of his media player posts, but we're all entitled to a brain fart here and there,
especially at our age...

Anyway, glad that you could figure it out.
I'm not pushing products here, but if you find conserving space becomes more important to you, you'll find that certain profiles for file conversions
will maintain excellent video quality and yet reduce your file size to 20-25% of the original files

Yes, I tried the ripper during the trial period. As you say, it made a good copy at a fraction of the space. The only down side of that is if you ever want a disk you must re-convert the file and FAB won't do that. And speaking of age, I get to apply for Medicare in Dec. Oh joy!!

[GregiBoy]

I've been in hospital and I also don't feel particularly like giving advice to tight arses that want everything for free and do not want to listen to advice.

Hard to believe GregiBoy missed posting his conversion sermon in any of his media player posts, but we're all entitled to a brain fart here and there,
especially at our age...

[ram1009]

You can't fight here. This is the war room. (Dr. Strangelove)