what's the best way to rip a series?

[shpanks]

I'm starting to rip an anime series aprox 26 eps long... but the thing is on the dvd the eps are split up into different vobs; so instead of having ep1.vob ep2.vob etc.. it's vts_01.vob which could mean 1 ep and the start of another or something.

I haven't started the encode yet because i wanted to know a good method of adressing this problem. I was thinking of ripping like a normal dvd just when oping the vfapi file select only 1 episode out of it and a do a 2pass encode on that, but that would take to long!
I also considered perhaps encoding the whole thing in 1 file jusat like a regular movie and then splitting it up in nandub with direct stream copy, but that ppl say will reduce the quality.

Is there any other way!!

I appreciate all the help i can get!

Shpanks

[Kedirekin]

I prefer to use SmartRipper to extract just the chapters for each episode. For example, regardless of what vobs the episodes start in (vts_08_x.vob, for example), I'll rip chapters for episode 1 to vts_01_x.vob, eppisode 2 to vts_02_x.vob, etc. It can be a little work to resync the subtitles, but still, this seems the easiest way to me.

[shpanks]

isn't there anyway to split my already ripped vobs into the original chapters or something?

[shpanks]

isn't there anyway to split my already ripped vobs into the original chapters/episodes or something?

[hakko504]

If you have the ifo's then smartripper will do the job for you. Put the files in a directory called 'video_ts', and use the explore button to find them.

[shpanks]

so if i make a dir called video_ts and put everything there (that i've already ripped) including ifo then what do i do?

[Kedirekin]

Actually, you don't *need* to put them in video_ts off root. I regularly rip chapters from DVD backups on my hard drive in a subdirectory like D:/DVDs/Rugrats/video_ts (Rugrats is for illustration - I didn't really ever rip any rugrats :D ).

And just to clarify, in addition to the ifo, you need a backup of the vobs - they need to be identical to the vobs that were on the dvd. Note though, you only *need* the vobs that have the episodes; you don't really need the vobs that go with other ifo files. If you've already ripped in movie mode, or ripped one pgc, or one angle, or done stream processing, or anything like that, the chapter offsets in the ifo won't match the 'new' vobs and chapter extraction won't work properly (if at all). So, if you don't have backup copies of the vobs, you'll need to start again with the DVD.

Now that that rather nasty caveat is out of the way, here is how to do it:
- start SmartRipper with no DVD in your DVD drive
- click OK when SmartRipper says there's no disc
- click the little folder icon next to the 'reload' box in the upper right
- select the directory where your vobs are
- select the title and angle for the episodes (SmartRipper will probably select the correct one automatically)
- identify the chapters for the first episode (for anime, there's usually a short chapter for opening, two longer capters for the episode, a short chapter for ending credits, and an even shorter chapter for the "next episode" preview)
- click the little folder icon under 'target' near the bottom
- select a destination directory to rip the chapters to
- Remember to override the file name - for the first episode, I like to enter vts_01.vob
- click Start
- repeat for other episodes (remember to give each a unique vts_0#)

SmartRipper will rip just the chapters you selected to a new set of vobs. Don't worry if you get a zero-length vts_0#-1.vob on the later episodes - SmartRipper just does that and it's harmless.

Good luck.

[manono]

If they show as one long connected series of episodes in Smart Ripper, I prefer to get them all at once and split them after. You have to check in GKnot though, to make sure there are keyframes placed between the episodes.

but that ppl say will reduce the quality.

Nonsense.

There's one major advantage to ripping first and splitting later, and that is that the quality will be even throughout the episodes. If you divide them into episodes in the beginning and encode each separately to 175MB or 233MB, then the quality may vary wildly between each episode, depending mainly on the amount of action in each.

You also save yourself the trouble of synching the subs, something Kedirekin mentioned.

If you decide to split in the beginning, I'd suggest doing all of the first passes so that you can adjust the file sizes-bit rates of each to end up with equal quality before running the second passes.