My favourite 5 video tools

[RAHRL]

My current list of favorite video tools, in random order:
1. MakeMKV, for ripping dvd’s and blurays.
2. VLC Player, only the Windows version, for testing ripped video’s.
3. Kodi, on Android TV, for playing videos.
4. Video Download Helper, add-on for webbrowser.
5. IMDB.com, for information on many movies and tv-series.

Tools that didn’t quite make it:
1. Windows 10, because Windows Explorer has issues with video thumbnails.
2. Nvidia TV Shield, because it sometimes looses smb shares, needs reboot. Many apps not available in Play Store.
3. Shotcut video editor, it is too complicated to use for simple editing jobs.
4. Subtitle Edit and OpenSubtitles.org, adding subtitles to movies is elaborate, synchronizing is difficult or impossible.

Feel free to add.

[Nucleus]

OS - Windows 10 LTSC:

For anyone into ripping/encoding MKVtoolNix is pretty much an essential.

Inviska MKV Extract (although discontinued) is my preferred one of several similar tools for extracting mkv streams - a GUI front end for mkvextrect.exe (part of MKVToolNix package).

SubtitleEdit is likewise invaluable.

LosslessCut great for cutting samples etc.

MP4-Mux-Tool useful for muxing MP4 files.

Media Player Classic - BE - Fave video player.

Vimu Media Player - Fave Firestick 4k media player for network streaming from NAS. Just wish they'd fix it correctly identifying forced subs streams!

TMDB and TVDB good companion sites alongside IMDB.

Simple Movie Posters - Easily generate BR or 4K movie posters if you're into Plex/Jellyfin whatever.

Process Monitor and GetMPLS as below in my sig - Identifying/Trying to identify the correctly playlist to rip in discs that use playlist obfuscation.

TheDiscDB - Playslist obfuscation again, can often show you the correct playlist to rip for a given title. Search movie title, click on it, then click on Disc 1 or 2 whatever and it shows the title/playlist number.

[RAHRL]

Do you actually use all that stuff?

I have used MKVToolNix a few times, it’s ok, but I don’t need it for every dvd that I rip. Have used it in the past to split episodes that were in 1 video file, to merge videos that were in seperate video files and to change the name of a language track.

I tried SubtitleEdit but not to my liking. It crashes a lot and it’s ocr process generates lots of mistakes. I have used it to sync subtitles from opensubtitles.org but I never get it 100% right, even if I managed to find the right subtitle file (lots if different versions around).

LosslessCut is ok, but I don’t have the need to use it, because MKVToolNix is also lossless and can do the same job.

I am not familiar with the other tools that you mention, but I am sure they have their purpose. I don’t have a nas or plex server, I play my videos over wifi from a windows laptop with external storage attached to it. Works fine for me. Whenever I rip a dvd, I also scan the cover of the case, so no need for a poster app of some kind.

I have used Handbrake a few times though, not for ripping a dvd, but for compressing a BluRay video that I previously ripped with MakeMKV. Try not to do that very often, as it takes considerable time to do that.

And finally, I have used DVDFab once, as it seems to be the only app that is able to retrieve region info from a dvd.

[Nucleus]

Do you actually use all that stuff?

Yes because I rip and encode, don't store any Remuxes as they would eat my hard drives given time. Use MKVToolNix a lot and SubtitleEdit to OCR .sup (PGS) to .srt and spell check, never had a problem with SubtitleEdit. Yes have used MKVToolNix to cut samples but there's no fiddling about manually entering timecodes in LossLessCut. Not familiar with DVDFab products, think I tried one ages ago but it seemed like a lot of unnecessary bloat and stuff I didn't need. MakeMKV sees to the overwhelming majority of my ripping needs, have also used Xreveal with an up to date keydb.cfg and an appropriate ripping tool, CloneBD or whatever.

I don’t have a nas or plex server, I play my videos over wifi from a windows laptop with external storage attached to it. Works fine for me.

Does that work okay to stream 4k movie rips? Although one of my 4k Firesticks is just across the room from the NAS I used to get occasional problems of stuttering (empty buffer in Vimu player), changed the Firestick to wired via the ethernet adapter gadget and all problems resolved, odd thing is that although a Firestick speed test shows slower via the Ethernet gadget (I believe its max is 100Mbps for some reason) any buffering issues disappeared. This was discussed in a thread somewhere but I wouldn't be able to find it now.

[dcoke22]

I do playback via an Apple TV 4K. It can display PGS subtitles without any trouble, so I don't mess with trying to convert to .srt. I don't have much experience with other playback setups, so maybe support for PGS subtitles isn't that common?

[RAHRL]

99% of my videos are pre 2010, so HD (1280x720) at the most. That works fine over my wifi and there is still plenty of bandwidth left for other devices.
But I must admit the situation could be quite different in case of higher resolution videos like 4K. In the latter case I would still have the option to cable the connection, something that Nvidia recommends on their website anyway but is not feasible in my old house because the Windows laptop is in my study upstairs and my screen is on the ground floor without any ducts in between. Currently, both my Nvidia as my laptop are wireless.

I have so many dvds left to rip that I am primarily interested in the most efficient way to process them. Every tool that I would need after an MakeMKV rip would take additional time, so I only want to use those tools in exceptional cases, not for each of my rips.
I’d rather not spend a day or so on a rip of a single movie, I strive to about 10 minutes per movie on average. This might be different for other rippers, and I find it interesting how other people have chosen their setup (hardware, software) that best suits their personal requirements. I think this aspect is generally underrated, there is a lot of info on technical issues, but no so much about realizing the best configuration for one’s personal wishes.

[dcoke22]

What sort of processing do you do after you rip a movie on DVD?

An easy way to increase the speed at which you can rip a big stack of discs is to get an additional optical drive. In MakeMKV's settings, there's an item called 'Ask for single drive mode'. If that's turned on and you have multiple optical drives connected, when you start MakeMKV, it'll ask you which drive you want to 'lock' that instance of MakeMKV to. You can then start a second instance of MakeMKV and 'lock' it to your other drive and both will operate independently. You can rip two discs at a time this way.

[RAHRL]

Yep, single mode is what I do. I have 2 dvd-readers and 1 bluray reader. I consider 10 minutes not too bad for a single movie. Anyway, ripping the dvd's is not the bottleneck, organizing can be and editing after the rip certainly is. That is the reason I want to minimize the number of tools and only use them in exceptional circumstances, not for every rip I make.

What do I do in those 10 minutes (on average, special editions with lots of bonus videos are worse).
1. Scan the cover and edit it,
2. Search for the movie on IMDB and create a map,
3. Rip the dvd with MakeMKV,
4. Assign the names to the files according to "my system".

Organizing tv-series can be elaborate because I want to assign the right season-, episode-number and title to each video. That isn't too hard when the title appears in the video (and you can find it), but it gets trickier when the title is not in there. You can not fully rely on episodes being in the correct order on the dvd's. E.g. I recently did Gilligan's Island and in this case the episodes were in the correct order but to check that I had to read the description of each episode on IMDB and watch parts of the videos. In this case the storylines are not overly complicated, but it can get a lot harder. In the case of Vegas, I have used the list of guest stars on IMDB to verify the pertaining episode. This process can take easily 1-2 days depending on the number of episodes.

@addition on Mon, July 8th. I recently ripped the Dutch tv series Moordvrouw, and again, no episode titles in the video. But when I play the original dvd’s with VLC, the episode numbers (but not the titles) are listed in the navigation menu. Because each episode of this series has a distinct opening scene, what I did in this case, is the following.
I ripped every disc, carefully keeping season and disc number. Then I switched back and forth between the orginal discs and the mkv files, every time playing the first scene with vlc to assign the correct episode number to the mkv file. After that I searched for the episode titles in IMDB (yes, it even has a lot of information on foreign tv shows) to round it off.
This works a lot faster than watching each episode trying to discern the storyline as described in IMDB.

[dcoke22]

An additional resource I use to help sort through the 'extras' on a disc is https://www.dvdcompare.net/
They don't have every disc in their database, but for titles they do have, the list is usually complete.

I also like to get posters from https://www.themoviedb.org, a site Nucleus mentioned (and appears to be the source of posters used at Simple Movie Posters). Personally, I'm fond of posters with recognizable artwork and the title without any other writing. I think they look better from the couch. Almost always there's an acceptable choice at TMDB.

[RAHRL]

Thank you for the link. It might come in handy some time. On rare occasions where IMDB does not have the information I need, I usually resort to Wikipedia. But it is always good to have an additional source available.

I was a bit too optimistic about 10 minute ripping time. It can vary a lot. Some dvd's are indeed done in minutes, but this week I ripped the movie The Outsiders (1983) and it took more than an hour!
Don't know why that is, could have something to do with the complexity, integrity or decryption of the disc structure that MakeMKV needs to decypher.

@addition on Mon, July 8th. I have to mention that I rip with debugging enabled and I don’t know the impact that could have on ripping times. But still, ripping times of various movies can vary a lot.

[dcoke22]

MakeMKV generally slows down the read speed of a disc if it encounters read errors. Going slower generally improves the odds of a successful rip. It also slows down the read speed at the layer change and at the edges of discs.

MakeMKV drive speed control

Starting with 1.15.3 MakeMKV manages read speed more actively. Specifically, it switches to the minimum speed not only on errors, but also around disc edges and layer breaks. Passing the layer switch on minimum speed eliminates many firmware bugs relayed to high-speed seek errors.

[Radiocomms237]

I can hardly believe that no one has mentioned MediaInfo, which would have to be one of the most useful programs out there when it comes to diagnosing problems.

[RAHRL]

I can hardly believe that no one has mentioned MediaInfo, which would have to be one of the most useful programs out there when it comes to diagnosing problems.

Excuse me for my ignorance, but where would you use that for? What kind of information can it provide on an mkv file that ctrl-j in vlc or mkvinfo cannot?

[Nucleus]

Excuse me for my ignorance, but where would you use that for? What kind of information can it provide on an mkv file that ctrl-j in vlc cannot?

What about those of us that don't use/like VLC? No idea of its Ctrl-J output but Mediainfo is a superb tool, even more so when added to the Windows right-click context menu. Has a choice of output styles, plain text shown in first screenshot. It's also built into the File/Properties menu of my fave player MPC-BE in second screenshot.

[dcoke22]

I use the command line version of MediaInfo all the time.