[Avatarass]

Hello. I dont know whether or not this has been brought up before, but...

Lately I caught myself in a situation where I couldnt add my DVDs (leggaly purchaced and transfered to hard drive for save keeping) to the Library without ripping them....

I heard something about XBMC being able to read .iso images, and I do know that it is capable of reading the video folder (feature kinda screwed up in linux by the way)... but that would be great for movies, if you have TV series with several disks for each season it is basically impossible to add to the library easily, without ripping them.

So the question is, would you kindly add the feature that reads either .iso files or video foulders, and then puts them into a library.

[thrak76]

It's already a feature.

Check this out

I'm not sure if this is what you mean, because XBMC already adds .iso and video_ts folders to the library without a problem...

[jmarshall]

An ISO file or a file in a video folder is already ripped.

I presume what you really want is to be able to say "I have a disk with X, Y, and Z on it. Please put these into the library, and prompt me for the appropriate disk when I click on it"?

i.e. you want to have some "stub files" for each disk. Which XBMC already supports.

[Avatarass]

No, what I meant is. Lets say I got American Gladiator Season 1 and 2. 3 disks each.

.iso way:
I call have each disk called American.Gladiator.[season#].[disk#].iso

So when I scan it into lybrary, and its gonna put it into: TV Shows --> American Gladiator --> Season # --> Disk #

video_TS way:
I put video_TS folders from each disk into folders on my hard disk: TV Shows/American Gladiator/Season#/Disk#

Then its gonna put them into the library the same way as in the .iso way.

So basically the idea is that instead of scanning into the library a whole bunch of ripped .avi (for example) files, with quality loss, you keep them as actual DVD library.

I do know that it can scan the video_TS folder, but it only works for the movies, which is ok, most people have only 1 movie on DVD. But if not, they also get screwed up. Also, like I mentioned above, for some reason in Linux XBMC separated my only DVD compilation of 4 cartoons into 5 movies (all the same), the whole DVD, cartoon 1, 2, 3 and 4.... but that's another issue, and I dont really worry about it, I only got 1 of DVDs like that. But having a whole bunch of TV series in DVD sets not being able to enjoy them without ripping them is kinda sad.

[thrak76]

As jmarshall pointed out. You have ripped them.

Try makeMKV which will make lossless .mkvs of each title on a DVD.

I think you'll find most people here have no problem ripping their titles into separate episodes. And then others prefer to rip isos or ts folders to retain the DVD menus. Either way, you're already ripping them.

[gabbott]

So basically the idea is that instead of scanning into the library a whole bunch of ripped .avi (for example) files, with quality loss, you keep them as actual DVD library.

Don't make the assumption that ripped files of individual episodes have quality loss. If they are transcoded or reencoded, then yes they could. But as thrak76 mentions, you can rip them in their native codec and simply have them put into a different container and get no quality loss at all. The extension you see at the end of the file name is just for the container that you put the video and audio into, it tells you nothing of the actual codecs used on what is inside it.

[Avatarass]

Well, not everyone has time, space and skill to rip them properly. I just think it would be easier to keep them as DVDs, which also allows you to watch all the DVD extras.

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Add...file_names

I do know what it is possible to add them manually to the library, with xml file that sets up the DVD. But there are problems like:

1. Its takes a while to set up.... a very long while especially if you do it for the first time.
2. Not all DVD's have episodes in order, which makes the time to set it up even longer and for some people impossible.

What I propose is a feature that allows adding DVDs into a library automatically, without a hassle.

[jjd-uk]

Doesn't naming the iso with the episodes contained work?

So American.Gladiator.[season][episodes].iso

Giving something like American.Gladiator.s01e01e02e03e04.iso

[Avatarass]

Doesnt work for me.

Not to mention that that its not particularly convenient, when you pick an episode, it sends you to the DVD instead of an episode. I am sure it can be fixed, but its a pain.

Im not concerned about it reading DVDs or not. Im talking about a feature in the TV show library, that allows you to pick between Season/Volume and disk, instead of just episodes.

[gmlstudios]

An ISO file or a file in a video folder is already ripped.

I presume what you really want is to be able to say "I have a disk with X, Y, and Z on it. Please put these into the library, and prompt me for the appropriate disk when I click on it"?

i.e. you want to have some "stub files" for each disk. Which XBMC already supports.

First, I love XBMC and use it daily, thank you so much if anyone reading supports XBMC in any way. Second, I have this issue, I recently backed up my collection and now have countless disks (and each disk have a few vids) I wish to put on XBMC with the stub file method. i have googled my way around and cannot find a "noob" friendly guide, any help would be greatly appreciated

[Ned Scott]

See media stub (wiki). Basically it's just a plain text file with a customizable message. XBMC looks at that plain text file as if it were a video itself.

[gmlstudios]

Thanks for the reply, I have it all figured out now, ive got a lot of work in front of me, would be nice if there could a program to make the files, just by inserting your disk through XBMC. Thanks again