Hi!
Here comes yet another thread about DVD ripping…
I use a Mac with Handbrake, and have started to rip my DVD collection to Plex. Normally, it works good. But there is a case that I don’t know how to handle: Many titles with many chapters, which seems to be the case for many concert DVD:s. Let’s say that I have a concert DVD with 1 main title, that’s divided in 20 chapters(songs). In addition to that, there are more than 8 titles with extras etc. These can have different resolution, different audio formats, and other differences.
First of all, Plex won’t allow more than 8 titles. Which means that I have to merge files. That will mean that I have to convert the files that I want to merge, and that needs(?) to be done externally (i.e. not i Handbrake). Second of all, If I merge them, I don’t know how to keep the chapters. To me, the chapters on a concert DVD is as important as the tracks on a CD, i.e. it really needs to work.
If anyone has a method for ripping these kind of DVD’s easy, retaining all titles/chapters/extras etc, where I doesn’t have to do so much manual work (my concert DVD collection is huge), and that works om MacOS, I’d be very happy 
For the moment I use Kodi, which allows me to have the rips as DVD iso:s. But Kodi won’t allow me to stream my movies to my other units (at least not as easy as Plex), and they take a lot of space.
Also, these DVD:s quite often use different angles, that I also want to retain (basically I want to retain all possibilies that a DVD can offer, but I know by now that menus aren’t possible to keep).
Please help me:-)
Oops, seems like I posted this in the wrong category (n00b error…). Admin, please move this to the right location.
Ripping the disc with MakeMKV will preserve the chapters.
That way you’ll have one video file that holds the whole concert. Then you use the ‘jump to chapter’ function/button to go to one particular song.
All the other stuff can be added like local movie extras.
see https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/comment/1122252/#Comment_1122252
and follow the links in that post as well
I have just started ripping my DVD’s so that I can stream them to my receiver. Mostly these are folder’s on the hard drive. My questions is this: Is there a good reason to keep the original VIDEO_TS folders once converted to something I can stream?
@sysopchris said:
I have just started ripping my DVD’s so that I can stream them to my receiver. Mostly these are folder’s on the hard drive. My questions is this: Is there a good reason to keep the original VIDEO_TS folders once converted to something I can stream?
The only reason to keep the VIDEO_TS folder is if you just cannot live without the DVD menus and all the mini games and other non-video extras and bonus content.
A few years earlier, one had the other argument that you could always burn the VIDEO_TS folder back onto a DVD, should the desire arise.
But hey: when did you burn your last video DVD? 
As for the other stuff: I’ve decided that I don’t need those. Photo albums on DVD had always too low resolution and the games did often perform abysmally.
I am happy that Plex does away with all that incredibly slow DVD (and BluRay!) menu navigation.
For me it is a pro, not a con.
Any preference of MakeMKV over Handbrake?
@sysopchris said:
Any preference of MakeMKV over Handbrake?
The two cannot be compared because they do different things.
I usually use both,
MakeMKV first
and then when required Handbrake for reducing bitrate/resolution/removing interlacing
There’s a handy Handbrake Guide in my signature that’ll slice a year or two off the Handbrake learning sequence.
