Vortexbox, ripping DVD's, preserving chapters/menus and playback.

December 6, 2014 10:20 PM

How do I use a Vortexbox to rip DVD's including menus & chapters so that I can play them back using e.g. VLC and get the same experience as if I still had the DVD?

I have a Vortexbox appliance that I've only ever used as a Logitech Media Server for my Squeezebox. Today I decided to stick a DVD in to see what would happen, and lo and behold it ripped it into an MKV using MakeMKV.
When I connected to the box with VLC on OSX via UPnP, I found the movie and was able to watch it. However, there's no title menu and no way to access the chapters in the video that I can see. It's just one 2-hour clip. That would be fine for a lot of things but in this case I'm ripping a TV show DVD where I'd like to be able to jump to specific episodes.
It looks like MakeMKV should be able to preserve chapters, and I think VLC can play them, so my hunch is that it's not set up correctly to actually rip those chapters. But I'm not sure because I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm comfortable mucking about in Linux since I'm a software developer by trade, but I've never paid any attention to the world of DVD ripping, streaming and playback. Any pointers?

posted by rouftop to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

I'm not familiar with Vortexbox, but I've been using Handbrake for most of my DVD ripping/encoding needs. It's pretty fantastic on doing what I want with a minimum of fuss.
posted by phooky at 7:26 AM on December 7, 2014

Have you asked this question over at the Vortexbox forum?

I have a Vortexbox but have never used it for anything buy streaming music to my Squeezeboxes.
posted by bondcliff at 8:13 AM on December 7, 2014

Handbrake doesn't do anything to preserve menus, does it? Chapters maybe.
posted by wotsac at 4:58 PM on December 7, 2014

Response by poster: I'd be fine without the menus as long as VLC gave me a quick way to jump to a chapter.
posted by rouftop at 9:41 PM on December 7, 2014