Omit File name suffix "t01", "t02", etc.

[Cosmo Guesting]

Is there a way to update my preferences to not add the title number at the end of the file name? I'm naming each title by hand in the Name field, then having to copy and paste it into the File name field, overwriting the automatic data generated when I set the Name.

I'd also like to eliminate the underscores and leave the spaces.

When I enter this in the Name field: TV Show S01E02 Mundane title

This is generated for the File name field: TV_Show_S01E02_Mundane_title_t01.mkv

While I'd prefer: TV Show S01E02 Mundane title.mkv

I searched but didn't find this answered anywhere.

Even better would be a way to have the name set via info from the DVD rather than having to do it by hand for each title. I couldn't find help on that, either.

Any help on accomplishing this would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

[MrVideo]

I might have some insight as to why underscores are used instead of spaces.

In the Unix/Linux world, a lot of people, including me, do a lot of things via the command line. As such, spaces are used to separate input options, etc. So if you try to do:

Code: Select all

mv TV Show S01E02 Mundane title.mkv NewDirectoryLocation

It will try to move the files TV and Show and S01E02 and Mundane and title.mkv to NewDirectoryLocation. Having the underscores eliminates the need to remember to enclose the file name in single or double quotes.

[Cosmo Guesting]

I might have some insight as to why underscores are used instead of spaces.

In the Unix/Linux world, a lot of people, including me, do a lot of things via the command line. As such, spaces are used to separate input options, etc. So if you try to do:

Code: Select all

mv TV Show S01E02 Mundane title.mkv NewDirectoryLocation

It will try to move the files TV and Show and S01E02 and Mundane and title.mkv to NewDirectoryLocation. Having the underscores eliminates the need to remember to enclose the file name in single or double quotes.

That's all very well for Linux users, but I'm on Windows and they're annoying. Handbrake has an option to convert them to spaces, so it's covered, but it would be nice to not have to deal with them at all—I have to remember to check the option in Handbrake; not quite as onerous as remembering to use quotes.

The more irritating problem is the "_t01" tacked on at the end. It's a real issue if my title has punctuation in it, such as:

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TV Show S01E02 Mundane's Journey to the Linux Side

Which then renders as:

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TV_Show_S01E02_Mundane's_Journey_to_the_Linux_Side_t01.mkv

If I double-click the File name to paste the name over it, File names without punctuation select everything up to the file extension:

TV_Show_S01E02_Mundane_title_t01.mkv

However, if I double-click a File name with punctuation, the selection stops at the punctuation:

TV_Show_S01E02_Mundane's_Journey_to_the_Linux_Side_t01.mkv

Triple-clicking selects the entire name along with the .mkv extension, which is totally unhelpful.

The "t##" is an irritating time-waster that I would love to avoid if possible. Eliminating the underscores is a "nice to have", but it's covered with Handbrake, so is the secondary issue.

[Woodstock]

That's all very well for Linux users, but I'm on Windows and they're annoying.

Both Windows and OS X also share the problem with spaces - they just have file managers that will hide the problem from you. Linux does too... But they're more annoying than the ones on Windows and OS X!

The issue of spaces AND suffixes come up regularly here. Mike has not acknowledged them recently, that I've read. The suffixes are added to make sure you have unique file names, but, if you have "Expert mode" turned on in Preferences->General, editing the file name before ripping is simple enough.

We'll have to see what Mike says this month about the suggestions... I'd certainly be in favor of an option to just use spaces!

[Cosmo Guesting]

The issue of spaces AND suffixes come up regularly here. Mike has not acknowledged them recently, that I've read. The suffixes are added to make sure you have unique file names, but, if you have "Expert mode" turned on in Preferences->General, editing the file name before ripping is simple enough.

The workaround I've come up with is to open the File name and double-click the "title##.mkv", which selects everything before the .mkv extension, and paste the name I want instead. Then I switch to Name and paste the same name there. Even eliminating the need to choose in the drop-down menu between the two Properties would be a great help.

When I'm working on six seasons of a TV show with 22 episodes per season and multiple special features, "editing the file name before ripping" takes a huge amount of time. Some seasons have as many as 150 special features for the season; that's 900 files names for the special features for the series added to the 132 episode names!

Little wonder I'd like to not have to paste the preferred name twice!

Hopefully there's a more elegant fix coming in an update; the sooner the better, please?

[Woodstock]

Just as a hint for the process of copy/paste, you can use the keyboard to navigate.

I use the automatic file naming set to "semi automatic". I then correct the output folder as needed, and set the Properties->Name to something that is common to the files, such as "Kamigami no Asobi HD". I can then hit the down arrow, and put the episode number on the end of each title in sequence. I then copy the "common part" to the clipboard, and switch the Properties box to "File name", and use the up-arrow to move through each title, double-click on the existing file name, then Ctrl-V plus the number gives me exactly what I want.

It goes fairly quickly, unless the "common part" has punctuation in it. Turn around for a 10 episode disk is about one to two minutes.

But yes, it is a pain compared to if MakeMKV just let us transfer the Name to File name without mangling it....

[Cosmo Guesting]

Just as a hint for the process of copy/paste, you can use the keyboard to navigate.
I use the automatic file naming set to "semi automatic". I then correct the output folder as needed, and set the Properties->Name to something that is common to the files, such as "Kamigami no Asobi HD". I can then hit the down arrow, and put the episode number on the end of each title in sequence. I then copy the "common part" to the clipboard, and switch the Properties box to "File name", and use the up-arrow to move through each title, double-click on the existing file name, then Ctrl-V plus the number gives me exactly what I want.

It goes fairly quickly, unless the "common part" has punctuation in it. Turn around for a 10 episode disk is about one to two minutes.

But yes, it is a pain compared to if MakeMKV just let us transfer the Name to File name without mangling it....

I create a spreadsheet and use formulas to assemble the file names I want. Columns include Season, Disk, ID (E for Episode, X for Xtra, etc.), Episode, Suffix, Title, Track, Result, and Paste. A formula inserts the common components of the names, adds leading zeros and punctuation where needed, and assembles the final name I want to use. This allows for spell-check and I do the entire series at once so if I discover any deviations from the norm I can adjust for them before beginning the ripping process. Saves renaming files after the fact to conform with a naming convention that had to change because something quirky got added on one of the discs.

I also have a formula that concatenates the track numbers into a string with spaces between each track number. Once I've entered all the data and the formulas have compiled what I want, I use Copy>Paste Special>Text to paste the end results into a column that I can copy the assembled text from. The top row of the Results column is the concatenated track numbers, and the individual track titles follow below.

For example, the columns might have this data:

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Season     Disc     ID     Episode     Suffix     Title                                  Track
3          1        E      1                      The Purple Piano Project                2
3          1        VJ E   1           1          We Got the Beat                         7
3          1        XD     1           1          Glee Under the Stars No Subs           35
3          1        XD     1           2          Sue Flashback—Deleted Scene No Subs    36

In the Result column, the formulas return:

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2 7 35 36
Glee S03E01 The Purple Piano Project
Glee S03VJ E01.1 We Got the Beat 
Glee S03XD1.1 Glee Under the Stars No Subs
Glee S03XD1.2 Sue Flashback—Deleted Scene No Subs

The Paste column is exactly the same as the Result column, but instead of formulas, has the text that the formulas assembled. Once I'm done, I hide all the columns except Season, Disk, Track, and Paste.

I have the spreadsheet open side-by-side with MakeMKV and use the "Open DVD manually" checkbox instead of scanning the entire disc. When the track list comes up, I copy and paste the track numbers, which gives me only the tracks I'm interested in.

Once the Title list appears, I click on the first title and choose File name, then switch to the spreadsheet and triple-click the cell with that title's name in it and use Ctrl+C to copy it to the clipboard. Punctuation isn't an issue unless somehow you're using curly quotes; even en- and em-dashes transfer without a problem. I switch back to MakeMKV and double-click on "title00.mkv", which selects the "title00" portion and I use Ctrl+V to paste the name there. I then switch to the Name parameter and use Ctrl+V to paste the name there as well, then select the next title in the list and keep repeating the process until I'm done.

It's fairly quick, but as you said (and the whole point of this post), it would be faster if I could just paste the title in the Name parameter instead of having to paste it twice.

If you're interested, I can paste the formulas I use here or share the spreadsheet online in Google Drive or something?

[Yugatha]

While a little late to the party, I've previously written and uploaded a script to solve this issue, located at http://www.makemkv.com/forum2/viewtopic ... 018#p38961

Just copy the code, paste it into notepad, and save it as "whatever.vbs" (keep the quotes, change 'whatever' if you like)

It will remove underscores, and the _t00 at the end.

[MrVideo]

Just copy the code, paste it into notepad, and save it as "whatever.vbs" (keep the quotes, change 'whatever' if you like)

I think you mean to say remove the quotes. This script is also for M$, not Mac or Linux.

[Yugatha]

Just copy the code, paste it into notepad, and save it as "whatever.vbs" (keep the quotes, change 'whatever' if you like)

I think you mean to say remove the quotes. This script is also for M$, not Mac or Linux.

I meant keep it. By default, notepad saves files as ".txt" files. If you want to save it as a different file type, you can either:
1) Encase the filename in quotes, with the required extension, or
2) Change the "save as type" from .txt to "All Files", then type the new extension in at the end of the file name (without quotes).

But yes, that script was for M$ only. People proficient in scripting could use it as a form of Pseudocode to write their own for Linux / Mac, or find a file renamer that is sure to be more efficient.

[MrVideo]

I've never saved a file in M$ using notepad, or wordpad (or any program), with quotes. I just enter whatever filename I want, without quotes. It might be that M$ strips the quotes before actually saving the file.

[chrispitude]

Linux user here. I see this request mentioned often when I search. I would also really like to see this feature. I use MetaGenerator 3 to automatically add metadata information to .mkv files by filename analysis (FANTASTIC complement to MakeMKV, by the way!):

http://pytivo.sourceforge.net/forum/met ... t1786.html

MG3 recently added support for translating underscore to spaces when performing its search. However, the title suffix is still gumming up the works. MG3 doesn't seem to be the right place to fix this. I don't want to edit textboxes or add scripts to the workflow.

Can MakeMKV *please* add an option to suppress the title suffix for single-file output scenarios? Thanks!

[kenneth]

If you're using Windows, there's a batch GUI for MakeMKV which can do what you want. It's called BatchMKV (I'm the author), and it has a tag-based naming feature for both the title name and the filename.