auto labeling titles

[haribo]

Hi there,
I'm using makeMKV 1.17.4 in Expert-Mode on a Windows 10 22H2 machine to rip my DVDs, so that I have all togethter on computer without any DVD-Menus. Generaly it works all fine; But there is only a little feature I'm missing or didn't find it yet: that's the title (in meta-data) for ripped videos. I found how to change it manually for each single file, but not automatically for all ripped.

An example for what I mean:
When I rip my bought DVD "Modern Family" the complete Season 1, All Videos will have the title "MODERN_FAMILY_SEASON1_DISC1" in metadata. So, when I'm playing them in VLC there will be written "MODERN_FAMILY_SEASON1_DISC1" in the title-bar of the VLC-Window (and also in the playlist).
But I don't want that. There should be standing the filename.

I found in Preferences>Advanced the input-field for default selection rule and Output filename template; is there any equal for the metdata-title?


PS: I'm a microsoft-child, so please no Linux-console-batch stuff.

PPS: The link "F.A.Q." on landing page isn't working.

[dcoke22]

In the GUI, after MakeMKV has opened the disc, at the very top level of the hierarchy, you can change the name field. That name change will cascade down to all titles below.

In your example, you could change "MODERN_FAMILY_SEASON1_DISC1" to be "Modern Family" and all the titles would change to that. Then for the individual episodes on that disc, you could change the title to "Modern Family s01e01 Pilot," etc. The resulting .mkv files with both have a filename and embedded metadata that is the same was what you set the title to. You can also change the names of audio or subtitle tracks this way too. Handy to be able to name a commentary audio track as 'Commentary'.

Also, the MKVToolNix tools, specifically mkvpropedit, allows you to change the metadata in existing .mkv files.

[Radiocomms237]

One thing that maybe could be done (sometime in the future) is for MakeMKV to interrogate the menu code and try to pick-out the name strings (from the menu screen) and attach them to the corresponding file, if that's even possible (I really don't know what I'm talking about)?

But sometimes the names are part of the background image instead (and sometimes in multiple languages), in which case the menu only links a clickable 'area' on the screen to the file, so that suggestion wouldn't work.

What I normally do, well, what I always do, is play the disc first and make a text map of all the content including names, duration, chapter count, and sometimes the first line of dialogue (if there are many titles with the same runtime).

Then I make a decrypted backup, which means I can actually play the transport streams from the backup folder to confirm their identity.

Then I open the backup folder in MakeMKV and match the file duration and chapter count etc. to my text map. Anything I can't identify then gets played from the .m2ts file to see what it is. The upshot of all that is, I almost never rip anything unless I've identified and labelled it first.

[haribo]

In the GUI, after MakeMKV has opened the disc, at the very top level of the hierarchy, you can change the name field. That name change will cascade down to all titles below.

Ok, that's Expert Mode I'm using already. Only that it will cascade down is new to me, and Iwill test MKVToolNix thanks.

One thing that maybe could be done (sometime in the future) is for MakeMKV to interrogate the menu code and try to pick-out the name strings (from the menu screen) and attach them to the corresponding file, if that's even possible (I really don't know what I'm talking about)?

Yeah, you're right: at the moment it is always 'stereo'.

What I normally do, well, what I always do, is play the disc first and make a text map of all the content including names, duration, chapter count, and sometimes the first line of dialogue (if there are many titles with the same runtime).

That would be time-robbing and annoying for hundreds of DVDs (I'm ripping my complete DVD-Collection from the last 30 years at the moment ).

Then I open the backup folder in MakeMKV and match the file duration and chapter count etc.

Uuuh, that sounds realy hard work.

[Radiocomms237]

~ I'm ripping my complete DVD-Collection from the last 30 years at the moment ~

I'm doing the same, and according to my spreadsheet, I'm now just over 1,850 titles into my collection (note that many of those titles may have anywhere up to 40+ discs in a set).

~ Uuuh, that sounds realy hard work.

When I started, I too used to stumble around in the dark, ripping everything off the disc and then spending hours playing files on my PC and most times having to play the disc anyway, trying to figure out what files matched which features. So yes, I've done this both ways and I can tell you that text-mapping the disc first is, if nothing else, a hell of a lot less frustrating!

Contrary to what you may think, I find that it actually saves me time in the grand scheme of things, plus I have a text-map saved telling me exactly what every file on the disc is (everything above the minimum duration limit anyway), and I couldn't count how many times I've gone back to my notes and been thankful that I do it that way!

Maybe, if you were only ripping movies, and no extras whatsoever, and you don't care about labeling the individual tracks, and you never had to distinguish one TV episode from another, then maybe text-mapping the disc would be a waste of time, but I like to get everything I can from a disc.

Otherwise it's like buying a new car, removing all the accessories (that you paid for), and throwing them in the skip bin!

[DanEG]

Apologies for the bump, but this is the same issue that I'm running into, and I didn't always have this issue.

By big dumb question is "Is there a setting just to leave the title field in metadata blank?"

I normally go from MakeMKV > Handbrake > Sickbeard > Plex. For hundreds of DVD/BD discs, all I had to do was establish the show name, season, and episode number in the file name. but now the "title" field in metadata is overriding all my scraper information.

I had no problem whatsoever with Planet Earth III, but a week later, my re-rip of Farscape is doing the "title" for metadata thing. when I go into the files individually with mkvtoolnix, I can simply delete the "title" that was put there by MakeMKV, and Plex has no problem picking up the proper title from the scraper(s). I haven't ruled out this being a problem caused by a Plex update, but at the moment, the best thing I can think of is to prevent MakeMKV from writing anything in that "title" field in the first place.

[Chetwood]

If all else fails you could remove those with mkvpropedit.

[DanEG]

If all else fails you could remove those with mkvpropedit.

Yep. That's where I am now. I'm trying to get back to not needing to care about the "title" field in metadata at all as it's much more time/resource intensive to lookup and write out (or even go back after the remux and delete) the title for every stream than to write the episode number into the output filename and let my scraper scripts tell Plex what the name of the episode is.

[jayper]

It's still a manual process, but I will often reference https://www.blu-ray.com, and look up a specific disk I am backing up.

In the "Review" section, the reviewer were often (not always) write out the names of each special feature and their running times.

This is helpful for copying and pasting the names, and identifying the titles.