How do you guys handle box sets of TV shows? I have read the reviews and forums but still don't have a handle on it. I am streaming from the MSS to a WDTV Live Plus and Media Browser.

1. Do you use your usual ripping format? Mine is VIDEO_TS.
2. Do you use a new folder like "Box Sets" (Under MSS>Videos or above it)?
3. How about the "Recorded TV" folder? All of my recorded TV so far is dvr-ms.
4. If there are multiple episodes on the DVD do you rip them separately or en masse?
5. How do you get your extender or MB to recognize them for cover art etc.?

I have the 6 part Horatio Hornblower series in my VIDEOS>MOVIES folder and they appear as movies and play but MB and the WDTV don't know what they are.

If I have missed anything feel free to advise.

Kubla Khan

_________________
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Ex495 3 x Hitachi 2TB Deskstar
WDTV Live Plus
Escient Fireball MX111
Puget Silent Tower (Win 7 Pro), Sony All-In-One (Vista), Sony Laptop (XP)
1 Seagate Goflex Desk 3TB USB3
1 Buffalo 1TB
1 Seagate 750 Gig

For TV Show Box sets I actually rip to individual episodes (see my writeup here)

http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2010/07 ... -episodes/

This give me the best experience and support in Media Browser as well as all my other players. Media Browser and others would pull ll the metadata/art from TVDB, y ou can see Horatio here - http://thetvdb.com/?tab=series&id=71493&lid=7

Not too many players handle Box Sets kept in DVD format. My Movies is probably the best for that

_________________
Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

I must be dyslexic, because I read "Handling Sex Bots" on the thread title.

My two cents: I simply rip the discs as "Full Disc" and edit the .xml file as needed to identify the episode numbers. I've separated episodes out in the past, but since given up.

In a case like this just make sure you have a lot of lube

_________________
Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

I'm like Damian - I rip each episode into it's own file.
I use anydvd to copy the entire disc to folders (not iso)
I use VLC player to identify the correct target title
I use handbrake to encode the title to an m4v high profile file (I usually queue up as much as I have in handbrake and just let it run). I include: AAC track, AC3 Track, and dub foreign audio subtitle tracks (burned in).

My naming convention is \season x\yy - episode title.m4v Specials and extra features sit in season 0. everything else sits in it's respective season folder (I mimic the structure thats outlined on thetvdb.com)

I use Metax (http://www.kerstetter.net/index.php/pro ... ware/metax) to tag the tv shows. it's a pita - as meta-x likes to change my title naming scheme - so you have to go into each episode and check the things you dont want meta-x to change. This makes the TV shows in itunes appear with all the tagging information you could ever want (artwork, HD tag, actors, ratings, etc).

I copy the tv shows over to my mss - which sits in my basement over a gigabit lan.

I use XBMC on my Ubuntu htpc to playback the tv shows. XBMC requires an advancedsettings.xml file to read my file naming convention and automatically scrape thetvdb.com and pull in episode details.

My home theater is a 58" samsung plasma, a yamaha rx-v863 receiver, 5.1 surround sound (with emp-tek tower speakers - http://www.emptek.com/). It's definitely home theater at its best.

Thanks to Damian and TedC for their info on Box Sets.

I started over with Farscape, season 1, ripping to MKV. Here are a few things I have discovered:

1. For inexplicable reasons the order of episodes on the DVDs are not the order aired.

2. If you have CloneDVD it has a preview feature that allows you to view any title at triple speed and it is easy and fast to separate out the different episodes, in my case each about 50 minutes in length, 4 to a DVD. This took about 5 minutes for the first DVD.

3. In the case of Farscape the order of episodes is the same as listed on the DVD cover so I won't have to do the CloneDVD preview thing again.

4. The TVDB will show you the order of episodes either in Aired Order or DVD order by clicking on a selector at the bottom of the page. In my case the Season 1 Disk 1 DVD has episodes 1, 7, 2, and 4, in that order. Go figure. Knowing that it is easy to name the episodes with the correct aired order if that is what you want.

I'm still not sure how TVDB works. I downloaded the program and pointed it at my first 4 Farscape episodes and got nothing back. Maybe thru MediaBrowser? Haven't tried it on my WDTV Live Plus. Still more to do but interesting nonetheless.

Kubla Khan

_________________
--------------------------------------------
Ex495 3 x Hitachi 2TB Deskstar
WDTV Live Plus
Escient Fireball MX111
Puget Silent Tower (Win 7 Pro), Sony All-In-One (Vista), Sony Laptop (XP)
1 Seagate Goflex Desk 3TB USB3
1 Buffalo 1TB
1 Seagate 750 Gig

Getting the naming/episode order can definitely be tricky. I just did it manually, I would open up the Disc on my PC using WMP or other, and through the DVD Menu I would navigate to each episode. When you play an episode you should be able to see what chapter it is, so when it came time to rip the episode I knew exactly which was which based on the chapter. Some TV Shows actually show the episode name at the beginning of each episode, so that makes it much easier to pinpoint and cross reference against TVDB. Once I know the correct episode I would just name the file S##E## (i.e. S01E01.mkv, etc...) and then when I copied over to my server it would get automatically renamed based on this.

_________________
Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

If I am right I won't have to do any checking with the disk. I am working on disk 2 and used the episode names on the disk, in order, to name the folder. I used the TVDB Aired Order from the website (Attached).

The order on this disk was 3, 6, 5, 8. Interestingly, the first 2 disks have episodes 1 thru 8 in seemingly random order but episode 1 is the first one on disk 1 and episode 8 is the last one on disk 2. There may be some unseen order going on. Or, it might be the sex bot.

Kubla Khan

_________________
--------------------------------------------
Ex495 3 x Hitachi 2TB Deskstar
WDTV Live Plus
Escient Fireball MX111
Puget Silent Tower (Win 7 Pro), Sony All-In-One (Vista), Sony Laptop (XP)
1 Seagate Goflex Desk 3TB USB3
1 Buffalo 1TB
1 Seagate 750 Gig

Yup, that is the same order I have used. Unfortunately TVDB is all user maintained so sometimes itc omes down to have an individual decided to put the orders in. Most common is to go by Air Date

_________________
Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

Firefly DVD was the same way - all out of order - it took some time to re-arrange what they were supposed to be.

What's really annoying is when a dvd's titles are all messed up. I think it's "The Office" that has episode one sit in title track 3, episode 2 sits in title track 5, then it goes 6,7,8,9 for episodes 3,4,5,6.

This is why I use VLC: I pick the episode i want from the DVD's own menu interface - then just go to the vlc toolbar and look at what title is highlighted - then use that title in handbrake.

Firefly is a mess, and so is the order on TVDB. Supposedly there was a lot of arguing over it. If you look somehow Serenity is Episode # 12. Because of all the arguing the TV Show has been locked - "This season is locked at the season level and cannot be changed.
It was locked by Imzadi"

_________________
Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin

Another place to look at episodes is Wikipedia. It currently has a good discussion of Firefly with an episode order. There does not appear to be any dissent on the order selection. They can get a little testy over at TVDB.

Kubla Khan

_________________
--------------------------------------------
Ex495 3 x Hitachi 2TB Deskstar
WDTV Live Plus
Escient Fireball MX111
Puget Silent Tower (Win 7 Pro), Sony All-In-One (Vista), Sony Laptop (XP)
1 Seagate Goflex Desk 3TB USB3
1 Buffalo 1TB
1 Seagate 750 Gig

You can also look at TV Guide as well. The problem is that if you go with TV Order different from TVDB it will most likely get screwed up on many front ends (because many of the front ends use TVDB, so it will end up showing an episode based on TVDB and not necessarily how you have it set up. YOu would have to manually fix and make sure you do for any future front end you use)

_________________
Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
"Like a midget at a urinal, stay on your toes!" - Lieutenant Frank Drebin