BATCH PROCESSING of 100's of ISO files - on QNAP?

[ffjoey]

Hi

I've got many .ISO files stored on my QNAP. I backed up all my DVD's there a couple of years ago.

I did it because my kids would break or ruin the discs on a regular basis.

I recently purchased a QNAP NAS so that I can put them all in one place. I was hoping to stream the disc's to the TV in the kids playroom... but the media player I have (currently WD LIVE) doesn't play ISO files.

I have been manually converting using MakeMKV, and it works like a charm - but some of the files take up to an hour to convert over the network.

Here is my question.

1. is there a way to point MakeMKV to my QNAP over the network and say "if you find an ISO file, convert it to a MKV file and save it in the same location as the source file

2. Keep all things equal, including subs, titles, etc. Menus I could care less of.

3. Within the ISO files are broken out VOB files. I find that MakeMKV converts each VOB to a separate MKV. I want everything to be saved in a single file. (this isn't a deal breaker - I've been going in manually and merging the files but would be nice).

4. I would LOVE it if I could run this on my QNAP (which is a Linux based box - and I've got Python 2.7.0 running on it as well... so not sure if that's doable). This would just save me running a PC for the task, and removes the latency of the network... also allows me to utilize speed of the "local" 8 hard drives in the RAID set to my advantage versus a single solid state drive over the network.

I have seen a few posts on the topic (i.e. http://www.makemkv.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=4987) which come close to what I am asking for. Problem is I am the furthest thing from being a programmer, and my Linux skills are quite rusty... I can navigate around (I used to work a lot with Debian 8-9 years ago but haven't touched it since)... But I know with a bit of guidance, I can do the work.

All things said, if going via a Windows PC is the only way to do this, I'm good with that as well. I'll just keep my PC running.


Thanks for your help in advance!!!

[ffjoey]

In doing some more reading online, I just came across this post from another website that seems to have figured out a way to process many ISO files using MakeMKVcon...

That being said, it still isn't perfect (as per the author) and it does not achieve what I am looking for.

http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/top ... automator/

It is an older post about an older version of MakeMKV so I'm not sure how reliable the script is?

With the release of Plex/9 and the associated iOS app, I was very excited to try it out (I haven't yet, even though I bought the app). The vast majority of my library is video_ts folders and iso (as well as img) files ripped from dvds. Since Plex won't stream video_ts or ISO formats to the iOS app, combined with the numerous complaints I've read about choppy playback of these files, I decided to convert to Mkv format.

I decided not to use Handbrake since I wanted lossless transcoding, but I was daunted by the task of converting 400+ movies one-at-a-time with MakeMkv (as it doesn't offer a batch conversion or queue like Handbrake).

With a little research and a lot of playing around, I've managed to write a script which uses the command line interface of MakeMkv to automate the process.

The program takes a folder full of movies (video_ts folders and iso images) and converts them to mkv format. The process isn't perfect, but it sure reduces the amount of time required babysitting the conversions. If you've got other movie files mixed in the folder, they'll be ignored. I also designed this script to skip any "special features" dvds, (as indicated by {special features, bonus disk, bonus materials} since I don't want my extra materials extracted to mkvs.

Using the program is simple. At run-time it will ask for:

(1) a folder to process
(2) a temporary folder to output mkv files to
(should be an empty folder with enough free hard-drive space to hold at least 1 or 2 5Gig mkv files)
(3) the final folder to place the finished mkv files
(can be the same as the original source folder)
(4) a minimum length of title to extract from the dvd-files (default: 60 minutes to avoid extracting trailers/special features/etc.)
(due to limitations of the MakeMkv command line interface and the process of automation, any titles longer than the specified mimimum length will be extracted - see known issues below)
(5) whether or not to delete the original files (default: yes , to save hard drive space)
(6) If you want Growl notification on completion.


Prior to running it, you must have MakeMkv on your system and install the command line interface and library (makemkvcon and libmakemkv.dylib) in your usr/bin/ folder. These files are in the MakeMkv app bundle (Contents/MacOS/). This can be accomplished with the sudo /usr/bin/install command. In a terminal window, navigate to the folder which contains the MakeMkv app (likely, the Applications folder). Then run the following commands (feel free to copy and paste):

cd /makemkv.app/contents/macos/

sudo /usr/bin/install makemkvcon /usr/bin/

sudo /usr/bin/install libmakemkv.dylib /usr/bin/

sudo /usr/bin/install libdriveio.dylib /usr/bin/


This should now allow makemkvcon as a shell script, which is necessary for this automator to work.

I am including the source as well. Anyone can feel free to make changes/additions however they choose. I ask only two things: first - give credit where credit is due, and second - post your changes to this thread for the benefit of all.

MakeMkv Automator v1.zip (57.84K)
Number of downloads: 416
MakeMkv Automator Source.zip (49.7K)
Number of downloads: 279

Known Issues:
- some files don't convert : Unfortunately MakeMkv can't handle everything. Apparently it often has troubles with files ripped using MacTheRipper. I used MTR extensively when uploading my DVD library and have still been able to convert a large number of files using this script and MakeMkv.
- more than one file is output : as mentioned above in the section on setting the minimum length, the command line interface for MakeMkv (makemkvcon) will , by default, extract all titles from a video_ts or iso. Setting a reasonable minimum length will minimize the number of garbage files extracted, but if a disk contains multiple versions of the movie (eg. theatrical and director's cut), the only way I know of to decide which one you get is to extract it manually.
- can't cancel conversions once started : the only way to cancel the process once it is running is to force quit.
- there's no logging : it's on my to-do list, but I wanted to get this out there for people to use now that I've got it working (essentially) the way I want it to.
- Forced Subtitles are no longer forced after conversion : Thanks to Compaulsive for pointing this out. It seems to be an known issue with MakeMkv. Hopefully MakeMkv will fix this in a new version.

I'm not sure if this will work or not - just thought I'd add in some additional direction to someone who knows a thing or two about the app

[Woodstock]

1. is there a way to point MakeMKV to my QNAP over the network and say "if you find an ISO file, convert it to a MKV file and save it in the same location as the source file
...
3. Within the ISO files are broken out VOB files. I find that MakeMKV converts each VOB to a separate MKV. I want everything to be saved in a single file. (this isn't a deal breaker - I've been going in manually and merging the files but would be nice).

That really isn't the way that MakeMKV works; it's going to create each TITLE it finds within the ISO as an MKV file.

[Chetwood]

but the media player I have (currently WD LIVE) doesn't play ISO files.

Both LIVE do. The old one plays back only the largest title (which is no problem if you just ripped the main movie) and the current SMP has a DVD menu mode which works from network shares.