Twilight Zone Boxed Set - Season 1 Problems

[mike_mgoblue]

I recently purchased the Twilight Zone Boxed Set of Blu-ray discs. This includes every episode of all five seasons. Many (but not all) of the episodes have a radio commentary broadcast version of the episode. You can easily select this option when it is available for that particular episode while watching the Blu-ray disc in a Blu-ray player. In the radio commentary broadcast version, you simply see one still picture from the episode while the narrators read the radio broadcast version.

However, the following discs have problems:

Season 1 Disc 1
Season 1 Disc 2
Season 1 Disc 3
Season 1 Disc 4
Season 1 Disc 5

Those five discs represent all the discs for Season 1. All five of the Season 1 discs do not allow you to copy the radio broadcasts of those episodes. I initially thought there must be some sort of technical reason the radio broadcasts for the episodes could not be ripped.

But, this changed with Season 2. In Season 2 Disc 1, the radio broadcasts were now available to copy. The radio broadcast versions are ripped as separate files from the episodes. The various episodes of the Twilight Zone often have between three to five audio tracks you can select when watching the episodes. These various audio tracks are Remixed Audio, Original Audio, Music Score, and often one or two narrator audio tracks. The radio broadcasts are not a part of these - presumably because the radio broadcasts are so much longer than the TV broadcasts. In Season 2 Disc 1, MakeMKV now was capable of ripping the radio broadcast versions as separate files from the TV broadcast versions. The files simply show a still picture from the episode while the audio of the radio broadcast version is heard. These radio broadcasts versions from Season 2 Disc 1 are listed as "MKV" files. This is why I do not understand why those radio broadcast versions from the five Season 1 Discs are not available to rip.

Does anyone know why the Season 1 Discs do not allow the radio broadcast versions to be copied? Thank you for your help.

[bigmack3000]

Came here looking for an answer to the same problem. Anyone have any ideas?

[preserve]

Barring someone else having this set and already knowing the answer, please see the following post:

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=23959

[ghosthost]

Ripping this set currently and have observed the issue (although it's a non-issue for me as I already have all of those radio dramas kicking around as MP3 files)...

Don't know exactly WHY the programs don't show up in rip software, but it's easy enough to get them saved... here's how to grab them:

Use MakeMKV to backup each disc fully to a hard drive folder. Once that's done, navigate to the \BDMV\STREAM folder for each disc. The radio shows are in separate m2ts files in that folder (usually with filenames of 00021.m2ts and higher -- eg 00022, 00028, etc). The files are rather small, containing merely a single frame of video and a 45+ minute AC3 audio stream. You can either keep them as is (VLC can play the files just fine), use the freeware MKVToolnix to create MKV or MKA files out of them, or you can go ahead and use the appropriate software to extract the AC3 audio and use IT as is or convert to a conventional audio format (say, MP3 or FLAC or M4A).

Considering that only half of the produced audio dramas are represented on the Blu-Rays, however, you may wish to obtain the entire set separately... just my $0.02...

[preserve]

The files are rather small, containing merely a single frame of video and a 45+ minute AC3 audio stream.

That brings up an interesting question of whether MakeMKV's title length detection goes by video length only, or whether it looks at the audio length... and whether setting the value to 0 would allow MakeMKV to detect them. Presumably this is why those titles didn't show up. Since no one posted any logs, I'm glad you figured it out and shared the solution!

[ghosthost]

The obvious difference in authoring between the season 1 release and the subsequent seasons is that for the radio dramas that single frame of video will play throughout the m2ts file as is on seasons 2-5. The season 1 radio shows seem to rely on the ability of the player to hold a single frame of video while the audio plays; that video frame is practically undetectable on software players. MakeMKV fails to see the title... and so does Vidcoder, if it comes to it. Frankly, it's an authoring quirk and probably not one that needs to be dealt with in software revisions, IMHO.

[jonfullmer]

This has already been addressed, but I ran into the same problem. As was pointed out, for some reason, they decided to only include the audio on Season 1, but audio and video for Seasons 2-5. As recommended, I backed up the discs for Season 1, and for each drama, I extracted the ac3 using ffmpeg:

Code: Select all

ffmpeg -i /Volumes/Untitled/TWILIGHT_ZONE_SEASON1_DISC1/BDMV/STREAM/00030.m2ts -map 0:1 -acodec copy /Volumes/Untitled/TwilightZone_S1D1-05.ac3

Then, I found my own JPEGs to use as still images, and made my own video (again, using ffmpeg):

Code: Select all

ffmpeg -r 1 -loop 1 -i TwilightZone.jpg -i TwilightZone.ac3 -acodec copy -r 1 -shortest -vf scale=1920:1080 TwilightZone.mkv

If your JPEG image isn't 1920x1080 (or especially, if it's 4:3), you can have ffmpeg maintain the image's ratio and fill the rest with black:

Code: Select all

ffmpeg -r 1 -loop 1 -i TwilightZone.jpg -i TwilightZone.ac3 -acodec copy -r 1 -shortest -vf "scale=1920:1080:force_original_aspect_ratio=decrease,pad=1920:1080:(ow-iw)/2:(oh-ih)/2" TwilightZone.mkv

The result is an MKV file with a still image and a copy of the original audio. Sorry I'm late, but I hope this helps others.

[McFly42]

Just bought this Blu ray set, and I'm trying to rip these episodes. Unfortunately, there's a scratch on my season 3 disc 4, therefore I can't get The Little People ripped, which really pissed me off. Does anyone have this episode ripped? I'd really appreciate it if I can get a Google Drive or MEGA share link.

[Woodstock]

If you've JUST bought the set, you should be able to get them exchanged for the scratch.

Or did you just buy them used? Those can be a problem... It's best to have the whole set in good shape, in case you have to rip them again later.

[McFly42]

If you've JUST bought the set, you should be able to get them exchanged for the scratch.

Or did you just buy them used? Those can be a problem... It's best to have the whole set in good shape, in case you have to rip them again later.

I didn't buy it directly from Amazon or a physical store, you see, I live in China, I bought it from another guy, it's gonna be troublesome to get them exchanged.

[beachboy75]

Just bought this Blu ray set, and I'm trying to rip these episodes. Unfortunately, there's a scratch on my season 3 disc 4, therefore I can't get The Little People ripped, which really pissed me off. Does anyone have this episode ripped? I'd really appreciate it if I can get a Google Drive or MEGA share link.

Hi McFly,
Did you ever get your hands on the episode, or do you still need it?

[Jellyfan]

I, too, have joined the Twilight Zone season 1 radio drama club. This issue also affects the special feature on Season 1 Disc 5 titled "Zicree Interview: George Clemens (1978) Part 1 (audio only)"

I can confirm that ghosthost's method worked for me, though it took me longer than it should've to figure out, because I tried playing the files from the bluray initially to test them out, and that won't work because they're encrypted on the disc. I'd never before used the backup feature of MakeMKV before. It's the folder icon with the green arrow over it below the "View" menu.

Once I ripped them using the backup feature, it was easy to turn the M2TS files into MKVs with MKVtoolnix, then extract the audio from the MKV files using MKVcleaver. Thanks, all!