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bobbintb · (This post was last modified: 2012-10-02, 03:05 by bobbintb.)

OK, I've been looking for an elegant way to handle multi episode ISOs and so far haven't found anything that works very well. Currently I can name an ISO like Fringe_S01E01E02E03E04E05E06.ISO and XBMC will add them to the library. However, when I try to play any of those episodes it plays the playlist on the ISO so all episodes are played as one large video. It also will only play from the beginning unless I create episode bookmarks and even then will not end at the end of the episode.

I have a suggestion for a better way to handle this. Since each episode on the ISO is in it's own file, I think it would be better to use episode bookmarks to point to the individual file on the ISO instead of the time to start playing. After being added to the library and an episode is played, instead of playing the playlist on the disc, it would ask which file to play and save it as a bookmark. That way an NFO can also be used to make creating bookmarks easier.

jmarshall · 2012-09-29, 03:14

Assuming these are DVD ISOs, then the "file" on the ISO does not make any sense necessarily. It does not need to be an episode, it could be something else entirely.

This is why everyone recommends ripping to separate files. It takes a small amount of extra time at rip time (one-off) and then you never have to deal with it ever again.

bobbintb · 2012-10-01, 06:00

I don't understand the first part of what you said. I know why everyone suggests it but I'd rather the problem be fixed instead of using a work around.

jmarshall · 2012-10-01, 08:15

Then you'll need to start reading up on how to fix it yourself, as I believe the chance of someone else working on it is remote. A starting point might be reading up on the structure of DVDs, and how the menu systems work on them, and how seeking works within libdvdnav.

Cheers,
Jonathan

bobbintb · (This post was last modified: 2012-10-02, 03:17 by bobbintb.)

(2012-10-01, 08:15)jmarshall Wrote: Then you'll need to start reading up on how to fix it yourself, as I believe the chance of someone else working on it is remote. A starting point might be reading up on the structure of DVDs, and how the menu systems work on them, and how seeking works within libdvdnav.

Cheers,
Jonathan

What I meant is I didn't understand what you were trying to say, not that I don't understand because I don't know anything about the subject matter. I don't understand the sentence. What do you mean "the file does not make sense necessarily"?What I am suggesting doesn't have anything to do with the menus or the seeking function in libdvdnav. I get all that and I'm looking at the source code myself. I'm just not much of a programmer, and since I'm not one of the developers it will take me a long time just to find the section of code I'm looking for.

It's just a shame that XBMC is able to handle ISOs but the when it comes to multi-episode TV shows, implementation is somewhat lacking. And I know developers do this in their spare time but I just thought this would be a much better way of handling it and a relatively simple fix. Many people prefer to keep their TV collection in ISO format to be able to keep that "disc experience" with menus and all but would still like to play individual episodes at times and not have to go through a menu and this would solve that. It seems kind of odd to me to that XBMC will handle ISO but every thread I read where someone keeps their TV shows in ISO format and has an issue the "solution" is to just rip them which essentially just forces people to choose between two features. This improved method will allow a user to do both and not have to choose or re-rip their entire TV collection, which for some is dozens to hundreds of discs spanning many terabytes.

Mihara · 2012-10-02, 12:59

(2012-10-02, 03:04)bobbintb Wrote: What do you mean "the file does not make sense necessarily"?

A "file" on a DVD disk is not necessarily one episode, as DVD disk structure allows to quite liberally define which bits of video get played from where and in what order. It is quite trivial to rip video from DVD without recompressing it at all, though, MKV file format allows you to store the original DVD MPEG-2 stream in a bit-perfect fashion, with notable space savings, and XBMC has no problem playing those files. See http://makemkv.com/ -- it makes the job quite trivial and fast.

If it's not the quality that concerns you but the 'disc experience', that won't help, though, but when you have the XBMC experience, I'm not sure it's really worth it. Smile

**Memphiz** · 2012-10-02, 15:18

(2012-10-02, 03:04)bobbintb Wrote: I'm just not much of a programmer, and since I'm not one of the developers it will take me a long time just to find the section of code I'm looking for.

vs.

(2012-10-02, 03:04)bobbintb Wrote: ...but I just thought this would be a much better way of handling it and a relatively simple fix.

FYI - most of us developers need to find the right places too which needs most of the time fixing things. And as i keep saying "there are no simple fixes". At least every user which posts in this feature section and is not able / or doesn't want to do it on his own should act like that.

DVD is dead. Kill the ISOs (my personal opinion about this pita)

dragonflight · 2012-10-03, 22:42

I am more than happy to work on this. I am just starting to use XBMC and there are quite a few things I am/would like to do.

I already have a patch that I use for myself for this (It was my first priority!). I absolutely want to retain the DVD structure especially the "extras".

I have organized all my tv shows (about a hundred) into folders where there is a folder for the DVDs (I store them as directories) and a set of episodes (mine are organized into seasons) of the style

101 name.tit<NN>

which are symlinks to the appropriate DVD.iso, where <NN> is the DVD "title" to play.

I have added .tit<NN> to the video extension list and patched the player to play the appropriate title.

(As a side note this also makes it possible to play a movie (most) without going through the DVDmenu, as well as separating multiple movies on a DVD)

The option to go to the title menu remains and then one can play the extras or whatever.

I realize this is not for everyone, I did it so I could play an episode from the computer file manager, as well as being reasonably portable across a variety of "media systems". The main issue is of course figuring out the correct title for each episode. I have a hacky shell script that helps me out a lot, but it would be very good for general use. As well, depending on the DVD, at the end of an episode it will play the next episode, return to the episode menu... I usually just hit quit (X in XBMC). I am intending to look at option to fix that, but it is less likely to work in all cases - I want a feature to play the "next" episode without having to find it in the episode list, so it is kinda important to be able to tell when the episode has been played.

My simple suggestion for now is to add the "TITLE" being played to the player display (beside the chapter) and allow an episodebookmark of the format TIT<NN>:<CC> which would start playing at TITLE NN, CHAPTER CC, so at least the nfo could be manually edited. I have a bunch of other stuff I want to do before I would want to go much farther than that right now.

Let me know what you think
mike

bobbintb · 2012-10-04, 16:32

sounds interesting mike. my basic goal is to be able to play a single episode of a tv show (as well as have it added to the library) from an iso without having to go through menus and such if i choose, but also have the option of loading the iso normally, as if it were a disc. it sound like your goal is the same. there are a few ways i was looking at accomplishing this and symlinks was one of them. i have thought of somehow incorporating symlinks, playlist, or bookmarks to accomplish this task but havent really been able to get anything to work which is why i came here. i mostly keep my tv shows in blu ray iso but have some old shows only available in dvd. id love to be able to get an example of what youve done so far. do you have a compiled version i could test out? it sounds like you might have a better implementation than what i had in mind.

dragonflight · 2012-10-04, 17:39

bobbintb,

Sadly what I have works for DVDs, but not for BluRays, while I have thousands of DVDs I don't have a single BluRay disc (except for PS3 games!). I should be able to get a few isos to play with, but none with tv shows (not that that should be a problem). I am afraid that it can be quite tricky to get the right batch of incantations to do what we want to.

If you are willing to play with the symlimks right now and are interested in the DVD portion to play with I can help you out.

As for the BluRay stuff - no promises - I will have to look at the player, and you may have to be a guinea pig to try different things out - it could be easy or it could be painful!

Perhaps a few PMs and then we can report how it goes here.

mike

Miyagiyoda · 2015-08-25, 15:15

I think having a Chapter also recording the end or duration of the chapter, in addition to the start point, would be progress. At least the s02e03-07-01-08-23-16.s00e05-06-7 multi-episode hack could actually work as intended, instead of automatically replaying everything after the selected Chapter mark.

Wimpie · 2015-08-25, 20:54

With my add-on, BR_iso_Enhancements, you can 'split' multi episode bluray iso's into seperate episodes. This can also be used to make extra's on the bluray available.

Check it out and let me know what you think of it...