DVD Ripper Best way to rip tv series

[luminousfyre]

What is the best way to rip a tv series while keeping the episodes separated? I tried the "chapter" option, but then you get A LOT of files, some just 10 seconds long. Isn't there a way to have just one file, but be able to hit "next" to skip to the next episode?

Thanks!

[GregiBoy]

It depends very much on the way the disk is authored and is nothing to do with Fab.

The usual convention is that each episode is a separate title and Fab will only rip into these individual title.

Some disks are authored with a "PLAY ALL" title and if you encode this, you get all the episodes in one file.

There are free products on the web which allow you to concatenate (join) the files to create the "PLAY ALL" title if it is not present. MKVToolnix is an example of these for MKV files.

[adgilcan]

I've been searching for the same answer as the OP but it never seems to be quite answered.

I have Plex Media Server installed on my system and the convention there is for each TV episode to be named in the format sxxexx contained in a folder of the Series name, where xx is the number of the series/ episode.

So what is required is to extract the episodes from the disc and save them as individual .avi, .mkv, .mp4 files, or similar format.

There is Handbrake which does exactly this but I cannot believe that DVDFab doesn't do it as well.

I think we all understand that we will have to manually sort which files are episodes and which are not relevant.

Is a moderator or senior member able to answer the question of if and how it can be done?

As this seems to be a question that comes up quite frequently but is never resolved, perhaps a moderator could sticky a thread containing the way to do it for all to see?

Many thanks

[Dana]

Manual Method

Hello,

I have ripped many multi-season tv series that are on several DVDs or Blu-ray discs.

I have yet to find a product that is totally on auto pilot when doing this process. This is probably because there is no standard authorizing format required when producing DVDs or Blu-rays.

I have found that once you figure out how the first disk of the tv series is authorized then it becomes rote for the rest of the disks.

Using only DVDFab you can match the "Play Time" of each "Title" with the episodes listed on the DVD/Blu-Ray jacket. Using DVDFab preview window you can then determine which is the first episode. They usually are then in numerical order after that. You may find one "Title" whose time almost equals the total for all of the episodes. This is may be the "Play All" "Title" you are looking for.

VLC can also be helpful in matching "Play Time" to "Title/Chapters".

I have hopes that the DVDFab MediaPlayer will provide detailed "Title" or "Chapter" file numbers since it is easier to view the movie in it than the preview pane in DVDFab.

Good Luck,

Dana