[mythtv-users] Rip DVDs that are already on disk

[Nick Rout]

On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 8:56 AM, Eric Sharkey <eric at lisaneric.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 1, 2010 at 3:25 PM, Purple Streak
> <mrpurplestreak at googlemail.com> wrote:
>> but this was asked subtly differently ;)   I actually prefer mail
>> lists and had found the forums first.  I've managed to get the vob
>> files appear after a fashion in mythtv - but it will just play the
>> vobs and I thought it would start with the menus.
>
> If you rip to iso format, then place the iso in the mythvideo
> directory, you'll get the menus.  You don't need to do this from
> within the frontend.
>
>> Also I'd really rather transcode them to the smaller format the docs
>> suggest you can do, but that involves having Myth rip the DVD (which I
>> can't do here)
>
> I'm not aware of any easy way to transcode a DVD in such a way that
> preserves menus and other DVD navigation stuff like that.  However, if
> you don't care about that, you can transcode using any tool you like
> and just place the resulting file in your mythvideo directory and
> rescan to pick it up.
>

makemkv will preserve chapter points, but not menus (AFAIK). It
doesn't transcode though, you end up with a mpeg2 stream in a mkv
container. You could use handbrake or something to then transcode it
and again maintain the chapter points.