Ripping a TV series in Handbrake

March 13, 2009 1:52 PM

I can rip movies to Xvid using Handbrake and it is all good....it rips the movie but no special features which is fine....But lately, when I tried John Adams (miniseries) or the TV show the 4400, it only took one chunk out of the whole disc and ignored the other episodes. Is there a way around this so I can get all the episodes even if they are lumped into one .avi file? (I really don't mind all the fast-forwarding). Thanks...and to all of those reading/responding...have a great weekend.
posted by snap_dragon to computers & internet (7 comments total)

By the way, I am using a Mac if that matters.
posted by snap_dragon at 1:55 PM on March 13

I'm not in a place to access Handbrake right now, so I can't see the screen specifically, but near the top-left(above where you type the filename) there is a drop-down menu that lists the different portions of the disc available to rip(titles). For a TV show, you'll need to rip each title separately. You can queue them all up and them rip them all at once so you don't have to keep coming back. Some shows(Smallville comes to mind) will also provide the option of ripping all episodes to one file. This would show up in the list as a very long title(the combined length of all episodes on the disc). I think this happens when the disc has a "play all" selection on the menu if you watch it normally.

Others may be able to correct if I've flubbed some specifics, since I'm working from memory. I hope this helps.
posted by owtytrof at 1:59 PM on March 13

Yup, owtytrof is correct...at the top of the window, under where it says Source: there is a dropdown for Title: where you select which piece of the disc you want to rip. Think of them like separate tracks on a CD—for your average movie there's just one big 2 hour track, but for a TV series or disc with a lot of extras there could be several separate ones.
posted by bcwinters at 2:15 PM on March 13

owtytrof is correct. On the upper-left is the "Title" section, which lists each "episode" by number and run-time. It'll also show the extras and their times (usually noticeably shorter than the main feature/s). On the right is the "Chapters" option, which has you pick how much of the selected section/episode you want. Let me illustrate an example from my own experience:

I have a DVD disc of a TV show that shows it have 14 titles total. The first 6 titles are about half an hour each in length, the other titles show a varying length of 1min to 20 seconds. So it's safe to conclude that the first 6 are the ones I want. To start, I would choose "1" from the "Title" menu and make sure that chapters 1-6 (which is the total number of chapters in this episode) are selected in the "Chapters" menu. I'd check my other settings and then add to queue once I'm satisfied with the selected options. Lather, rinse, and repeat if I wanted to rip the remaining 5. This also applies with feature length movies that you want to make sure you have in entirety.

Now if it's a show like Smallville (to take owtytrof's example), you simply choose between the chapters. It's best to keep an eye on the duration time listed on the right of "Chapters", because it'll give you a rough idea of whether you have the episode in its entirety. A look through chapter lists online or giving the disc a run through DVD Player will help get you an approximate run-time.

Let me know if you need any more help. Good luck!
posted by arishaun at 2:22 PM on March 13

Thanks...I am trying that right now...seems like it will work. I will let you know if otherwise.
posted by snap_dragon at 2:37 PM on March 13

Be sure to take advantage of the Queue in this case. Use the drop-down menu to select Title 1, configure all your settings, pick the output file, but instead of clicking Start, click Add to Queue.

Now re-do the same process with the next title, change the destination filename, and click Add to Queue again. Repeat until you have everything in the queue, then click Start to have it processed all at once.
posted by odinsdream at 7:53 PM on March 13

I do this all the time, except I use the command line version on my Linux media server. The above posts are correct, you just scan the disc, set the title you want, rip, repeat. Here's the command I use to, for example, rip titles 1-4 from a disc (using the "Normal" preset here, which is 1.5Mbps H.264/160kbps AAC in an mp4 container):

$ for i in `seq 4`; do HandBrakeCLI -i /dev/dvd -t $i --preset Normal -o NameOfDisc_Title$i.mp4; done

If I wanted to rip titles 2-3, 3-5, or whatever else, I'd just alter the seq command: "seq 2 3", "seq 3 5", etc. This produces separate files named, for title 1 for example, NameOfDisc_Title1.mp4.
posted by DecemberBoy at 9:51 PM on March 13 [3 favorites has favorites]