[mythtv-users] Can mythtv play VOBs?

[Ryan Steffes]

On 10/25/07, Kevin Kuphal <kuphal at dls.net> wrote:
> On 10/25/07, Pamela J. Ashworth (webmail) <pashworth at mindspring.com> wrote:
> > I'm not home now, or I'd check.
> > I know it plays avi's - actually avi's renamed .mpg and stuck into the database by hand - I lost a few Grey's, Brothers & Sisters, Journeyman eps in the 10pm crashes I may have finally stopped having, and had to wedge in some avi's. (it works a whole lot better than it did in .18 or whatever we were using last, btw)
> >
> > MythRip isn't working
> > MythVideo, does not, as far as I know, do playlists.
> >
> > Playing the commercial DVDs mythDVD - when it cycles thru all the eps on a disc, it goes back to the menu, with a music loop that tends to wake me up
> >
> > all my old Grey's avi's were saved on the hard drive that is currently broken.
> >
> > I could use my homemade DVDs with no menu music but you can't be all that selective about which eps you want - and train wrecks and bomb threats at 3am just don't do it for me.
> >
> > I have the eps on recorded-to-DVD-analog-from-myth-with-dubbing-cables-and-a-DVD-recorder which I could stuff in (to the directory and database), if I thought that would work.
> >
> > TMI, I know. (also I could have looked it up, but why would someone document such a redundant "feature")
>
> The short answer is, Yes.

Long answer, Yeeeeeees.

Ok, no really, long answer, there's a variety of ways to accomplish
what you may want, but I'm not sure I'm following exactly what it is
you are actually asking.

It sounds to me like you have the following options:

1) A commercially made DVD
2) A cloned copy of that DVD (with menus and such)
3) A DVD containing recorded episodes in some format?
4) A hard drive that doesn't work

1) Commercially made DVDs you have multiple options, the easiest being
to play the DVDs straight from the dvd using either MythDVD or ogle.
The next easiest probably being to mirror the dvd to a directory under
you MythVideo and play the episodes that way.  Following that,
depending on your patience and hard drive space, my preferred option
is to rip and transcode each episode and make yourself a nice shiny
new AVI to watch at your convenience.

2) A cloned copy should essentially have the same options, the odds
are good on you just popping it in and having it Just Work in MythDVD.

3) A dvd containing episodes as mpgs or avis, you can just mount the
dvd and copy them into a folder recognized by MythVideo, or add your
dvd mount (eg /mnt/dvd/ or /media/cdrom) as a folder for MythVideo, or
create a symlink from your MythVideo and watch them that way.

4) Recover the data from the hard drive!


Playing episodic DVDs is always annoying because they tend to be not
too polite about helping you figure out which titles you actually want
to watch without the help of their menus.  My personal strategy
(bearing in mind I buy TV-on-DVDs, rip them, and toss them in a dark
closet never to be seen again) is to rip all the available tracks then
figure out how they match up afterwards; once you've got them all
converted it's usually pretty easy to tell which are real and which
aren't.

The easiest, non-gui method I'm aware of to watch episodes on a DVD is
to use the following command:

mplayer dvd://1 -alang en

It's important to note commercial VOBs tend to have multiple
languages, so you'll likely need to get to know the alang or aid flags
to get the best results.

Here's an example command of how I used mplayer to conveniently rip
each title of an episodic DVD I mirrored to a directory:

for((i=1; i<12;i=$i+1)); do mplayer dvd://$i -dvd-device
/home/MythVideo/temp/ -dumpstream -dumpfile /mnt/video/30-3.$i.vob
-aid 129 ; done; && for ((i=1;i<12;i=$i+1)); do sh ~/trans.sh -i
/mnt/video/30-3.$i.vob -o /home/MythVideo/tv/30rock/S1-3-E$i.avi -a;
done;

The trans.sh file is a simple script I whipped up a while back to
transcode DVDs with the common options I use.  It doesn't produce
optimal results by any stretch, but it's convenient and good enough
for my purposes.  I can post it if you'd like.

Hopefully this was helpful, or at least may help you figure out what
question might get you better answers.

Ry