Ripping tv series episodes in the right order

[efrancis]

Hi,

I'm currently in the process of converting all my tv series from BluRay to MKV. However with more than half of my series, I get the episodes in either reverse or total random order. I know I can manually rename the tracks, and so far it always seems to work when I check the name of the playlist files (*.mpls) and rename the tracks in correlation with the alphabetic order of the playlist files.

However that is tiresome, when ripping lots of discs. After reading several posts in this forum, I understand that the order of the tracks are dictated by the physical order of the tracks on the disc. This may be the most straightforward method when programming it, but makes little sense from the users' point of view. Is there anyway to convince MakeMKV to sort the tracks alphabetically by the filename of the playlist? If not is there any hope to see this feature in the future?

[Smithcraft]

It's dictated by the way the studios master the disc. Many of the discs I've ripped have been in order, and some were in a what-were-they-thinking order.

So, personally I don't see any hope for this be easily resolved.

SC

[efrancis]

I guess it's not the studios that decide to wilfully randomise the order of the tracks, but the mastering software will try optimise the layout of the disc from a technical point of view.

But to be honest, if I can manually reorder them just by checking the names of the playlist files and put them in alphabetical order, then so can the computer. It's just a choice whether the tracks are numbered in the order of the physical disc or in alphabetical order.

[Smithcraft]

Not really. A disc can be mastered with the content in any order they want. They can master it with the episodes in inverse order, they can master them with the episodes in even even odd odd order, or however they want.

SC

[efrancis]

Of course the alphabetical order of the playlist files is no guarantee for the right order of the episodes. I'm well aware of that. However with all series that I ripped so far, the alphabetical order DID match the order of the episodes. This is purely an empirical discovery.

Usually the episodes are not even in consecutive playlists, so episode 1 might be in 0007.mpls, episode 2 in 0013.mpls and episode 3 in 0015.mpls, but the order usually matches. Now MakeMKV often would call file 0015 track 0, 0013 track1 and 0007 track 2 (assuming that I have skipped smaller tracks automatically). This will reverse the order, requiring a manual rename rather than a batch rename of the files.

If MakeMkv had the option to order the files according to the playlist name automatically, that would save a lot of time. As I said before, it's not a guarantee for the right order, but it seems to match most of the time, so it would be a helpful feature.

[mike admin]

If MakeMkv had the option to order the files according to the playlist name automatically, that would save a lot of time. As I said before, it's not a guarantee for the right order, but it seems to match most of the time, so it would be a helpful feature.

Currently MakeMKV keeps titles in so-called "physical" order, playlists are in the same order as they are on the disc. Sorting by playlist ID produces somewhat random results, but I do see your point. Have to think how to do it properly...

[cesmkv]

One thing I've noticed and I could be missing something is that makemkv lists all the titles in file size whereas most software I've tried in this genre list the titles in running length. I would prefer running length as opposed to file size.

[sponkaps]

Currently MakeMKV keeps titles in so-called "physical" order, playlists are in the same order as they are on the disc. Sorting by playlist ID produces somewhat random results, but I do see your point. Have to think how to do it properly...

This still seems to be the case with the current version if I did not miss any option to change that, right? I would really welcome the option to arrange titles in the order of the playlist file numbers, too.
As a workaround I currently do a backup first. When opened from the backup the titles are already in the desired order.

[oban14]

I am having the same problem. Sometimes I just watch the first minute or I go to the end of the episode to find a series code. These can usually be correlated to thetvdb.com quite easily, but it is very time consuming. I was wondering if the series and episode information is already contained in the metadata of the file. I can't figure out how to extract the metadata though? Any thoughts or ideas?

[TheTerrorBeyond]

I have found FileBot to be a godsend. It has really made it so ripping televisions shows, cartoons, etc. is pretty painless. It fixed up the horror of my Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry rips without issue. I also ripped all the Benny Hill Show DVDs and it was able to name everything and put everything in order. I couldn't be more pleased with it.

http://www.filebot.net/

[TheTerrorBeyond]

For shows where they tie episodes together into one file, MKVToolNix GUI will allow you to break the file into individual episodes. A prime example is Supernatural. That series is horrible for ripping, but you can fix it up with MKVToolNix GUI.

I use VLC to find the breaks for episodes, then enter the time code into MKVTool to cut the file. Works like a charm.

[animeditor]

Even though this is a ten year old post, I wanted to come thank efrancis for this. You just saved literally days of my life. After working through the entire Friends box set for my girlfriend (over two weeks of watching and looking up the episodes to put them in order), I no longer fear buying TV box sets. Thanks!

[couldashoulda]

Even though this is a ten year old post, I wanted to come thank efrancis for this. You just saved literally days of my life. After working through the entire Friends box set for my girlfriend (over two weeks of watching and looking up the episodes to put them in order), I no longer fear buying TV box sets. Thanks!

Now, if there were only a trick to figuring out which 13 Friends episodes are real. MakeMKV shows there are 26 episodes on disc1.

Code: Select all

File 00075.mpls was added as title #0
File 00074.mpls was added as title #1
File 00073.mpls was added as title #2
File 00072.mpls was added as title #3
File 00071.mpls was added as title #4
File 00611.mpls was added as title #5
File 00608.mpls was added as title #6
File 00401.mpls was added as title #7
File 00607.mpls was added as title #8
File 00610.mpls was added as title #9
File 00612.mpls was added as title #10
File 00081.mpls was added as title #11
File 00609.mpls was added as title #12
File 00604.mpls was added as title #13
File 00606.mpls was added as title #14
File 00605.mpls was added as title #15
File 00603.mpls was added as title #16
File 00602.mpls was added as title #17
File 00601.mpls was added as title #18
File 00082.mpls was added as title #19
File 00055.mpls was added as title #20
File 00201.mpls was added as title #21
File 00080.mpls was added as title #22
File 00079.mpls was added as title #23
File 00078.mpls was added as title #24
File 00077.mpls was added as title #25
File 00076.mpls was added as title #26

[dcoke22]

On the Friends blu-ray box set, each episode is listed twice. Once with all the languages and once with English and Japanese. The segment map is the same for the two copies of the episode, so they're the same video, just different .mpls files surfacing different sets of audio and subtitles. My strategy was to pick one set (English + others) and uncheck the other set (English + Japanese).

Generally speaking, I found the episodes went in order of the segment maps. By that I mean the episode with the lowest segment map number was the earliest episode on that disc. The second lowest was the second episode and so on. There was at least one episode I can recall that didn't follow this rule, but most did.

Also, the episodes with a commentary track had a third .mpls (again, pointing to the same segment map of .m2ts files) that surfaced just the commentary track. I ended up ripping those as well, opening them and their matched episode in MKVToolNix GUI and muxing the commentary track back into the episode as an additional audio track.

I find that making a decrypted backup of the disc and then making .mkv files from the backup makes it easy to play the .m2ts file associated with a title's segment map to verify it is what I think it is before MakeMKV creates the 'final' .mkv file.