Need help watching Macross in Plex (HTPC software for Mac)

[Macrossmaster]

Hey all,

Just got a Mac Mini and loaded it with Plex for use with the plasma in the living room. Loaded on a bunch of stuff, and went to rip my old Macross TV series DVDs. Plan was to use individual chapters (episodes) as episodes in Plex. I rip them, and lo and behold, there's weird chapter selection, because the five files that make up four episodes are all spliced in weird places, not at beginning and end of each episode.

Long and short is, any advice on how to load Macross onto my Mac Mini (besides going through DVD menus from ripped DVD which I'm doing now?)

And for the record, yes, I do own the DVD's. Number 243 (?) on the initial sign up list way back in the day.

[Freiflug88]

Those five files per four episodes are named something like VTS01_01, VTS01_02, etc right? By default these VOB files splice video footage by every gig of space they take up as files, not episode explaining the random chapter selection.

Rather then Rip the entire DVD and basically copy the Five VOB Files directly from the Video_TS file of the DVDs what you want to try is rip each separate Indvidual episodes as its own VOB file. In your DVD ripper look for an option called "VOB splitting" normally its set to 1 gig, set it to NONE. Then select and rip the chapters that make up each individual Episodes and label them Episode #, Chapter #, or whatever just as long as they are numbered so that they are in order. When your done you should have 36 VOB files, one for each individual episode. Put them all under your Macross folder, tell Plex to scan it, and Volia you will have chapters split by Episode.

[HannouHeiki]

Those five files per four episodes are named something like VTS01_01, VTS01_02, etc right? By default these VOB files splice video footage by every gig of space they take up as files, not episode explaining the random chapter selection.

Rather then Rip the entire DVD and basically copy the Five VOB Files directly from the Video_TS file of the DVDs what you want to try is rip each separate Indvidual episodes as its own VOB file. In your DVD ripper look for an option called "VOB splitting" normally its set to 1 gig, set it to NONE. Then select and rip the chapters that make up each individual Episodes and label them Episode #, Chapter #, or whatever just as long as they are numbered so that they are in order. When your done you should have 36 VOB files, one for each individual episode. Put them all under your Macross folder, tell Plex to scan it, and Volia you will have chapters split by Episode.

The animeigo discs are chaptered in a way where it reuses the same intro and being video for all the episodes. That is why your chapters are messed up. Why don't you check out the Galaxy Network blog and download some

of the new remastered versions on high bitrate mkvs? Or you can get the DL DVD versions off of asiandvdclub.org. These versions are the Japanese remAsters with superior bitrate and will look so much better on that tv of yours

[Macrossmaster]

Aahh thanks you guys.

I didn't want to download others because I don't own those and I'm working on downloading a crapload of unlicensed stuff right now (Bionic Six, Robotix etc).

I'll give it a shot and let ya know.

[Freiflug88]

The animeigo discs are chaptered in a way where it reuses the same intro and being video for all the episodes. That is why your chapters are messed up.

The reused video issue can easily be fixed with VOB blanker. Its free, but it only works with Windows. With VOB blanker you can easily find and extract the intro video as its own standalone VOB file. Then you just tell VOB blanker to insert this new VOB file in every instance the video is marked to be reused. Save and output to a new VIDEO_TS folder and then use Image Burn to store the folder in an ISO and you will have a new complete Macross DVD ISO without any of the intro gaps to rip from.

[Macrossmaster]

I'm using Mac the Ripper to extract the video. I'll see if I can get it to do what you say. I'll report back soon. Or try downloading it once my 8 zillion other downloads finish.

[Mallet21]

You're looking at a pretty big project....Since you already own the DVD's I wouldn't feel to guilty about downloading a torrent where the work has already been done.