Vista Media Center - My Movies and myTV

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HTPCnewbie

57 posts

Master Geek

#27058 12-Oct-2008 13:31

I have been happily using My Movies to catalog/play ripped DVDs from my HDD for a while now (I rip the DVDs onto my HDD as VOBs), however things didn't go so well this weekend when I tried to rip a TV series DVD and catalog/play it through My Movies. I ripped each episode separately (removing all menus and unwanted audio/subtitles), but then My Movies got very confused - refusing to recognise most of the episodes, and then not allowing me to select which episodes I wanted to watch via the UI.

After a bit of digging on the Internet I've come to the conclusion that My Movies probably isn't the best plug-in for managing TV series, so have been considering installing myTV (which people seem to be recommending). Two issues I see with myTV and my approach to-date: (1) myTV doesn't appear to accept VOB source files; (2) each episode must be in one file, but some of my episodes span multiple VOBs

Before I embark down the myTV path, I was hoping to get some advice...
(1) Am I right that My Movies isn't ideal for managing TV series?
(2) Anyone have any issues with myTV and want to recommend an alternative?
(3) What converter program do people recommend for turning multiple VOB file episodes into a single (MPEG?) file that myTV will accept?

EDIT: Also, I would prefer to use video formats that VMC understands natively so I don't have to install codecs

Thanks!

PS I know MediaPortal may be a solution, but at this stage I'd prefer to stick with VMC

eXDee

4032 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#170712 12-Oct-2008 14:08

Can't help on the selection software but Handbrake is designed to convert DVD's to mp4, avi or mkv using xvid, h264 or mpeg4 as the codec. Its very flexible/customizable.
Though if you don't want to learn how to use handbrake, AutoGK will convert DVD's pretty much 1 click apparently.

DaveB

1139 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#174834 31-Oct-2008 11:35

I imagine this is the same problem that I have encountered when trying to add an "extras" disc to the same title.

I found the easiest way around this was to ensure that the seperate discs go into seperate sub folders, so imagine that this would be a suitable solution to your problem. From there, just use the collection database tool to manually point MYMOVIES to the seperate files for each episode and name them accordingly.

Hope this makes sense as I am quite new to MYMOVIES and not at my HTPC.

Cheers DB

HTPCnewbie

57 posts

Master Geek

#174838 31-Oct-2008 11:49

DaveB: I imagine this is the same problem that I have encountered when trying to add an "extras" disc to the same title.

I found the easiest way around this was to ensure that the seperate discs go into seperate sub folders, so imagine that this would be a suitable solution to your problem. From there, just use the collection database tool to manually point MYMOVIES to the seperate files for each episode and name them accordingly.

Hope this makes sense as I am quite new to MYMOVIES and not at my HTPC.

Cheers DB

The solution I ended up with (while I wait for a more stable version of myTV) is as follows:
(1) Rip each episode as a separate VOB file
(2) Convert all the VOBs to dvr-ms files using VideoReDo (so that you get full FF and RW capabilities)
(3) Name each file like this: SE -
(3) Build a folder structure that looks like: ShowName\Season X\(one dvr-ms file per episode)
(4) Point VMC video library to the root of this folder structure

Now when I go into Video Library, I see the names of all the TV shows, when you select a TV show it shows you all the seasons, and when you select a season it shows you all the episodes in that season in order with the title of each episode.

I'm not using My Movies at all for the TV Shows, I found it didn't work very well at all as it wants to treat each DVD as one 'unit', whereas I wanted each episode to be the primary organising 'unit'. Still use My Movies for movies though, and it is great for that.

My solution for TV shows works quite well, and not sure I will even bother with myTV....