For my XBMC setup I have taken some time to figure out how to get DVD’s from my series in the XBMC Library. After a bit of fiddling I got a solution (some obscure regex in the advancedsettings.xml file) to get it to pick up my naming convention for multi episode DVD’s of my series.
Folder name: {seriesname}
Folder name: Season 1
Folder name: {seriesname}.S01E01E02E03E04
VIDEO_TS
When I got this to work in the XBMC interface I found out that this creates a dependency between the different episodes. Furthermore after selecting my episode in XBMC it did not directly play it but started the DVD - in the main menu.
In comes MakeMKV, a freeware tool for extracting Movie parts from DVD’s (Bluray is also supported but does have a license fee).This tool just extracts all information from the movie (or different ‘titles’, aka episodes) into the MKV container. This keeps the niceties and removes the trash (menu’s).
Getting it done is easy as:
- Select folder containing the VIDEO_TS folder (or open DVD/Bluray)
- Tick the episodes you want extracted (all by default)
- Set folder where to save (can be done semi-automatic, see settings)
- Hit Run & get yourself some coffee. Extraction can take ~15 minutes depending on your config.
After it is done extracting your episodes just rename the title0XX.mkv files to {seriesname}.S01E01.mkv or whatever Season number (S01) or Episode number (E01) it actually is.