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[Mr ChriZ]

DVD's seem to be made up of one or more VOB files and then an IFO file, which from what I can gather is the index and DVD menu system.
Most of the time it seems to me to make no sense to display the VOB Files to the user.
I change all my movie views to filter out VOB Files and instead just view the IFO files.

I'm wondering if there's any merit to doing something like this as a default.  Or possibly not importing the VOB Files unless otherwise requested?
I've never come across a lone VOB file... maybe they do exist?

For the casual user though it must be confusing to import a DVD then go into a Movies view and get 6 instances of the same movie?

[Mr ChriZ]

Hmm I've just tried this on a new library and it's not doing it anymore.
I can't see why though.  It's still set to import VOB's but they're not there.

[InflatableMouse]

Dvd's have never imported as individual vobs for me.

Sounds like maybe something was wrong and MC imported orphaned vobs?

[Mr ChriZ]

Strange just seems to be that old library. 
Time for a new library I guess!

[jmone]

FYI - I still use the venerable DVD Decrypter to break up DVD's by Eps (TV Series) or Track (Music DVD) as individual VOBs that I then import and tag in MC.  I now leave them as VOB files but I used to rename them MPG in the pre LAV Splitter days as some splitters had a hissy fit with the VOB extention.  I would not like to see individual VOB files "hidden" but I could just rename them to MPG if this was the case.

Edit - I've never tried Auto Particles on DVDs before but I'll give them a test go and see if this is any better than my existing DVD Decrypter method.

[Sandy B Ridge]

I gave Particles another go after Xmas because we got some TV series on Bluray and DVD.

I had previously had no luck with particles with MC17 a few months ago, but thought I'd try it out again. Worked brilliantly. All the episodes were imported as separate particles and play fine. I had to manually try and figure out which episode was which in order to tag them which was a bit of a drag, but I'm not sure if there would be an easy way to do it automatically à la Carnac.

Good work boys!

SBR

Edit:

sorry. Yes, using Auto particles.

[InflatableMouse]

Auto particles?

[Mr ChriZ]

Wow... just found the auto particle functionality... awesome.

I created particles for my Stargate DVD's then filled in the episodes by hand, then used Get TV info to get full TV Series info.
Properly awesome

[Mr ChriZ]

OK not quite so awesome... the cover art messes up when retrieving from TVDB.
TVDBs database seems correct

[jmone]

Yup - that is what I'm seeing : http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=77057.0

[InflatableMouse]

Wow... just found the auto particle functionality... awesome.

I'm sorry, but could someone tell me where or how that works? I can't find it .

[MrC]

Look in the Stacks context menu.

[JimH]

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Particles

[BartMan01]

OK not quite so awesome... the cover art messes up when retrieving from TVDB.
TVDBs database seems correct

I use particles with Blu Ray and they work great.
With DVD, they are a bag of hurt (at least for me).  All particles share the same 'file name' so they share the same cover art.  They also frequently 'break' and stop working (launching the particle results in a 'not found' error), in many cases as soon as they are created.
IMHO, the particle feature for DVD needs to be updated/rewritten.

[Mr ChriZ]

I use particles with Blu Ray and they work great.
With DVD, they are a bag of hurt (at least for me).  All particles share the same 'file name' so they share the same cover art.  They also frequently 'break' and stop working (launching the particle results in a 'not found' error), in many cases as soon as they are created.
IMHO, the particle feature for DVD needs to be updated/rewritten.

If I manually do one file at a time then the cover art seems to stick, so I don't think it's a limitation of the database

[TXgary]

Does this work for ISO files (created from dvdshrink) and if so where does it store the results (each of the chapters, particles)?
I am using latest 17.

[BartMan01]

If I manually do one file at a time then the cover art seems to stick, so I don't think it's a limitation of the database

Are you SURE about that?  It does appear to stick when you are doing it, but as soon as they rebuild they are all the same as the last one added.

[Sandy B Ridge]

Are you SURE about that?  It does appear to stick when you are doing it, but as soon as they rebuild they are all the same as the last one added.

Yes, agreed. I see the same behaviour. You can temporarily get different images, presumably because they get cached, but the tag reference is the same and a 'rebuild thumbnails' goes back to the problem of same images for multiple episodes.

SBR

[Mr ChriZ]

You can close MC and reopen and they stay the same... I guess rebuild thumbnail goes away and pulls the image back from the cover art store or something...
I don't know enough about the database, but it seems to me the thumbnails are stored individually. 

[vagskal]

Are you SURE about that?  It does appear to stick when you are doing it, but as soon as they rebuild they are all the same as the last one added.

If the thumbnail images for particles revert to be the same for one disc, try to change the thumbnail size.

If you rebuild thumbnail for particles they will all get the same thumbnail, in my experience (which is limited).

[NickF]

I tried this today for the first time.  I have always used MakeMKV in the past which reliably gives a .mkv file for each episode.  It doesn't do any lookup and only names the files as a sequence of titles.  That sequence is usually in the correct order.  So I had to rename them in Windows Explorer then allow MC to import and everything worked perfectly.

Today, I ripped a DVD for the first time in MC.  The first thing I noticed was that MC used a generic "DVD Movie" for the Name, even though the disc name in Drives & Devices was showing "House S6 D5".  Why doesn't MC use this?  Why can't this be parsed to get Series Name and Season automatically?  We would then be some way to getting the info needed for naming the particles.  When the "Get Movie & TV Info" window pops up, Series name and Season could have been inserted to get a search result.  As it is, search on DVD Movie returns nonsense.

I entered "House Season 6" and it matched the correct series description and season cover art, albeit from Wikipedia.  Why isn't TVDB on the list of data sources?  Even after this search, The Series and Season should have been populated but weren't.  The description was but the Media Sub Type was still "Movie".  Is this data from Wikipedia just not structured or included?

On completing the rip, I populated Series and Season fields and then used Auto Create Particles.  This was almost instant.  Media sub type was now correct with TV Show.  I could tell from durations which titles were the episodes.  Interestingly, the main DVD rip showed a title duration, not the whole DVD duration, actually the second episode duration.  By deduction, I worked out the Episode numbers and did the Get Movie & TV Info.  Descriptions and episode art were downloaded but the "Image (small thumbnail) showed the missing image icon.  Hovering over the files showed the correct image.

I closed MC and re-opened and found that all the particles had disappeared!

Nick.

[NickF]

I went through the process again and now the particles seem stable.

As far as the thumbnails are concerned, I am seeing what others see.  Interestingly, I have the Image (small thumbnail) showing in the Files view in Standard View.  These are different and correct for each particle.  When I hover over any of them, the image in the pop up is the same and is the one for the second particle.  This is the one which has the same duration as the main DVD rip.

In Theater View in Shows, when I select each particle, the image in the info panel is initially correct then changes to the one seen on hovering in Standard View.

Nick.

[BartMan01]

I went through the process again and now the particles seem stable.

For now I've given up on DVD particles for 'stability' issues and cover art.  Even when I can get them 'stable' for a time, they eventually randomly break and stop working on me.  Nothing like spending the better part of an hour identifying the start/stop locations of each song on a concert DVD, painstakingly creating particles that work on creation, and then having it all just randomly stop working.

Blu-Ray particles on the other hand are rock solid, since they attach to the individual play list and not the main title and typically I can find a play list entry that contains the content I want split out with particles.