[mythtv-users] OT DVD ripping software

[Mike Holden]

jedi wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 29, 2014 at 03:55:05PM +1100, Mike Holden wrote:
>> Simon Hobson wrote:
>> >> Swanseasurfing wrote:
>> >>> Did anybody integrate an "import disc" menu item into MythTV
>> >>> (e.g. that
>> >>
>> >>   I would not bother with something like that. The key
>> advantage
>> >> of something
>> >> like MythTV which is built on top of something like Linux which
>> is
>> >> ultimately
>> >> just Unix is that "it's all just files".
>> >>
>> >>   You can do what you need to do outside of MythTV and then let
>> it
>> >> deal with
>> >> the results you've created.
>> >
>> > That's fine for most of us, but a lot of people would like a
>> system
>> > where they pop a disk in the slot under the TV and "shortly
>> > afterwards" are able to watch it. The WAF for such a function
>> would
>> > be a lot higher than any "well you have to go to this other
>> system,
>> > run some magic incantations, and eventually you'll be able to
>> watch
>> > the disk" setup.
>>
>> In my view, there are too many variables in the layout of a disk
>> to
>> just "rip it automagically".
>
>     I have rarely found this to be an issue. Movies generally have a
> single main title. TV shows have a predictable pattern of titles of
> a certain size.
>
>     Discs with multiple variations (TV or film) are exceptions.

I have seen movie disks with 20 or more (even up to 50+, the record
I think was something like 99 titles on a single disk) variations
when you look at the title list in something like lsdvd. Without
playing the disk in vlc (or similar) it's difficult to figure out
which one is the one you want. I'm assuming that some of these are
put there deliberately by the manufacture to stop us using automated
methods to rip "their" movie (yes I'm aware we only "rent the
privilege" of playing their content!).

>
>     Looking at the title list, it's pretty easy to figure out what
> kind of disk you are dealing with and what are the tracks you want.

For a human, yes. For a "simple" bash script, not so much.

>     Subtitles and captions are just different streams in the
> container
> and those with very few exceptions are also very predictiable and
> easy
> to extract in an automated fashion.

Yet again, it's those "very few exceptions" that prove the
difficulty in automating every possibility. My canned script uses
the audio HandbrakeCLI "copy" method for all audio tracks, but a
recent rip only had a single "lpcm" audio tracks, so I needed to add
a default conversion method to decode to mp3. It's there now that I
know about it, but this disk initially ripped with no audio track.

>
>     If you're not transcoding the video, you don't even have to
> worry
> about any of that stuff because it will all just remain in the VOB
> or BD stream.

Yes, but then you're stuck with all the adverts and annoying
trailers and piracy messages, and the inconvenience of waiting for 3
or 4 minutes to play the movie! You can skip some of it, but it's
still massively annoying.
-- 
Mike Holden