[jcruse]

I'm having difficulty with my front-end of choice (XLobby) in structuring my library of TV Seasons on DVD (legally purchased). Currently, I've ripped these to my media library in IFO/VOB structure, but can't get Xlobby to display them properly. It would be much easier if each episode had a single file, that I could name with the episode title (instead of having multiple VIDEO_TS subfolders, and generically named IFO/VOB files).


I've tried converting to single-file MPEG or AVI with DVD2AVI and the interlacing artifacts became terrible. I'm not sure why it would do this since the IFO/VOB deinterlace fine.


Actually, I'd be happy if I could get Zoomplayer to play a VOB file without stuttering (I could just merge any multi-VOB rips). Anyone know why when you launch the IFO file in Zoom it works fine, but when you try to play the VOB directly it skips and stutters?

 

[JDLIVE]

VOB files are MPEG2, any ripping prog can convert them by ripping to elemental streams.


AutoGK is an easy solution to convert DVD to Divx or Xvid.

 

[John Nelson]

If you rip each episode (title) to it's own folder, Xlobby should find and display it just fine. Somethng like this directory structure.
Code:

TV Series>
      Star Trek>
          01 The Trouble with Tribbles>
                Video_ts>
                     Video_ts.ifo, etc
         02 The Enemy Within>
                Video_ts>
                      Video_ts.ifo,  etc
      Babylon 5>
          01 Episode 1 Title>
               Video_ts>
                      Ifo's and vobs..

 

[jcruse]

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Nelson If you rip each episode (title) to it's own folder, Xlobby should find and display it just fine.

Yeah...I wanted it to display differently. I want it to function more like the music page so when I click on a picture for the series, it drills down into the seasons from that series. Then when clicking on the season it goes to a detail page with the coverart for the season and text-listing of all the epsiodes. I have tried exhaustively to do this with the existing file structure, but no go. I assume it works with the music categories because they are all named files that sit directly below the album folder.

 

[John Nelson]

So if I understand you, your having problems displaying the season coverart, at the same time as the episode list?? Does drilling down to the actual episode work, your just not able to display the season coverart?? The series below is done with the directory structure I described above. (except episode coverart is displayed instead of season coverart)


http://home.insightbb.com/~jr.nelson/images/m1.jpg
http://home.insightbb.com/~jr.nelson/images/m2.jpg
http://home.insightbb.com/~jr.nelson/images/m3.jpg
http://home.insightbb.com/~jr.nelson/images/M4.jpg

 

[jcruse]

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Nelson So if I understand you, your having problems displaying the season coverart, at the same time as the episode list?? Does drilling down to the actual episode work, your just not able to display the season coverart?? The series below is done with the directory structure I described above. (except episode coverart is displayed instead of season coverart)

John, Your setup is different than what I was trying to achieve but still very nice! In your example you have to click on the episode name to go to the detail screen. For the music db in XLobby, you don't need to do that. You click on the album, and it takes you to the album detail screen with track listings (in other words, the album name is not the lowest level of the database, but still takes you to a detail screen on click...I have not been able to mimic that, since my episode category forces me to select the lowest-level item before it triggers the detail screen)


I think I can live with they way you've done it, though. Regarding some of the extra bits you have in your database (season descriptions, episode descriptions and air dates), did you manually type those in (or copy/paste)? Or did you have some automated way to do it. Also, did you take screen shots from each episode for the episode cover art, or copy them from somewhere else?


If you could post your db import screen, especially the meta-masks portion, it would help


Thanks!

 

[John Nelson]

If you wanted to execute the episode without going to the detail screen, you could blank out the "Info Screen" field on the category definition screen. Without that, XLobby will execute the category item when you click on it instead of going to a detail screen.

http://home.insightbb.com/~jr.nelson/images/m5.jpg


I use eXtreme Movie Manager to catelogue my TV Series. It understands the concept of Series and episodes. It also has scripting ability that can open a web site and collect series data. I use to use the TVTOME script which got everything but coverart, unfortunately, the TVTOME site was purchased by CNET, and they changed the site all around, and the script no longer works, so I have to manually scrape the data. Anyway, once the TV Series data is in eXtreme Movie Manager, I have a Microsoft Access script that I wrote which reads the eXtreme Movie Manager database, and writes a XML database file for XLobby.

For coverart, I use to play the episode and grab an appropriate frame and then import it into eXtremeMovieManager, that was very time consuming, so now I navigate through the DVD menu, to the episode play screen and grab that frame (see above screen shot), and import into eXtreme.

 

[jcruse]

John,


I've sent you a PM

 

[MoG]

Hi,


It looks like you might have found an alternate solution below, but I figured I'd post as I have the same question.


I'll try AGK.


I'm using MCE2005 and "My Movies." I'm currently using DVDShrink to rip my TV DVD's to the same file structure John mentions above.


However, I'd still like to remove the "VIDEO_TS" folder and simply have 1 video file under the episode folder.


I don't mind losing chapter marks for my 30-minute and 60-minute tv shows.


The only issue is I don't want to lose any quality when converting a single episode dvd into a single video file.


thanks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jcruse I'm having difficulty with my front-end of choice (XLobby) in structuring my library of TV Seasons on DVD (legally purchased). Currently, I've ripped these to my media library in IFO/VOB structure, but can't get Xlobby to display them properly. It would be much easier if each episode had a single file, that I could name with the episode title (instead of having multiple VIDEO_TS subfolders, and generically named IFO/VOB files). I've tried converting to single-file MPEG or AVI with DVD2AVI and the interlacing artifacts became terrible. I'm not sure why it would do this since the IFO/VOB deinterlace fine.

 

[gt9450]

Try a program called Cucusoft avi/mpeg to dvd/vcd/svcd/mpeg convertor (pro version v5.7) it may be a new version out now but it Merge and Batch plus it can take a 4x3 and stretch to fit a 16x9 and still dont look stretch. just look up Cucusoft i think you will like it.