.iso format - streaming/pushing to Tivo HD?

[sbh2squared]

I apologize if this has been covered elsewhere - the posts I found on the subject never really answered the question and went off on all sorts of other tangents. I'm not all that tech-literate, so I need the simplest way to do this.

I've been backing up my 6 year old's DVDs on my computer, and burning extra copies as she scratches and ruins them. We just got our Tivo HD this week, and I'd love to be able to stream those same videos and just leave them on my PC and stop burning all those DVDs. Is there something I can do with the .iso files, or do I have to start over with the original DVD and another program to transcode to an mpeg file? I've been streaming with Streambaby, but if the Tivo Desktop Plus can handle on the fly conversion of an .iso file, I'll spring the $25!

Thanks for any/all help!

[wmcbrine]

I don't think TDP will do it.

You shouldn't have to go back to the original disc, whatever you end up doing -- an ISO is an image of a disc, so you should be able to rip from it as you would from a real DVD.

It's possible that HME/VLC (http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showpost.php?p=6616197) would let you stream directly from the ISO, but I haven't tried that. Otherwise you probably are looking at using a DVD ripper to extract an MPEG from the ISO; or, you could just open the ISO, and copy out the .VOB files, which should be playable individually. (They're really a form of MPEG.)

[jcthorne]

I am in a similar predicament with some tv episode dvd's. Since I wanted to store them on my file server in a streamable format AND in the most space efficient way possible, I decided to bite the bullet and transcode them to .mp4s

My workflow is:

FairUseWizard to extract episodes from the .iso file and save them as mkvs (unfortunatly FUW does not currently create mp4 files) using h264 encoding at the full resolution and original ac3 soundtrack. Then remux the mkv file to an mp4 using a batch file.

The resultant files are stored on the server with tivo metadata files and are directly streamable by streambaby or pushed to tivo by pytivo in better than real time.

[curiousgeorge]

I don't think TDP will do it.

You shouldn't have to go back to the original disc, whatever you end up doing -- an ISO is an image of a disc, so you should be able to rip from it as you would from a real DVD.

It's possible that HME/VLC (http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showpost.php?p=6616197) would let you stream directly from the ISO, but I haven't tried that. Otherwise you probably are looking at using a DVD ripper to extract an MPEG from the ISO; or, you could just open the ISO, and copy out the .VOB files, which should be playable individually. (They're really a form of MPEG.)

Similar issues here. When you rip the VOBs out from TV series, especially, there are a number of them that have episodes that span VOBs in haphazard fashion, so it's not one episode per VOB and it requires a bunch of post-processing to chop them up. Streaming the ISO would be the real deal. Anyone try HME/VLC for this yet?

[jmemmott]

When you rip the VOBs out from TV series, especially, there are a number of them that have episodes that span VOBs in haphazard fashion, so it's not one episode per VOB and it requires a bunch of post-processing to chop them up.

I don't know if it is of interest to you but as an alternative, T2Sami and t2extract process DVDs by VTS and PGC for this reason. It can produce both a synchronized mpeg2 and an .srt (from closed captions or subtitles) file needed by Streambaby for captioned streaming of each episode. If you don't want/need captions, Streambaby will let you turn them off.

[jcthorne]

Similar issues here. When you rip the VOBs out from TV series, especially, there are a number of them that have episodes that span VOBs in haphazard fashion, so it's not one episode per VOB and it requires a bunch of post-processing to chop them up.


Fair Use Wizard does all this for you and maintains perfect audio sync in the resultant files. Creates one mkv per episode if thats what you want.

[curiousgeorge]

Not so much luck with the other suggestion. I'm giving Fair Use Wizard a shot. Thanks.

[curiousgeorge]

Fair Use Wizard does all this for you and maintains perfect audio sync in the resultant files. Creates one mkv per episode if thats what you want.

I must be retarded. The lack of documentation on Fair Use isn't helping. I can't get it to pull out the episodes from a TV Series DVD Do I have to do it manually, one episode at a time? There's an "auto" option, but that gets it wrong, too. Any tips?

[curiousgeorge]

I don't think TDP will do it.

You shouldn't have to go back to the original disc, whatever you end up doing -- an ISO is an image of a disc, so you should be able to rip from it as you would from a real DVD.

It's possible that HME/VLC (http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showpost.php?p=6616197) would let you stream directly from the ISO, but I haven't tried that. Otherwise you probably are looking at using a DVD ripper to extract an MPEG from the ISO; or, you could just open the ISO, and copy out the .VOB files, which should be playable individually. (They're really a form of MPEG.)

I've gone back and tried HME/VLC to stream ISOs, but it doesn't seem to recognize files with the ISO extension. No problem with mpg's or any other formats I have, but that doesn't save the work of manually chopping up the DVDs, so it's not help. Any idea how to get it to recognize ISOs? If I change some function on the VLC media player will that help?

[Soulpatch]

Finally something I know a little about. Not so much steaming it to a Tivo, but converting to an mpg.

You can use two programs to achieve this, both are free.

First, you can not copy a DVD unless you own it, and are only using it for your own backup or use. That being said...

DVDFab (you don't have to buy the full version just to rip DVD's, but you can if you need/like the other functions) and VOB2MPG.

DVDFab will rip the DVD to your hard drive, and VOB2MPG will join all the VOB's to one seamless MPG.

Another way is to use DVDFab, and then change the portion of the movie (chapter) that you want from .vob to .mpg. The VOB file extension is an uncompressed MPG anyways.

Using VOB2MPG will make the file smaller (compress), and insure perfect audio sync. You can use video editing software to take out parts, or cut to your specified sizes.

I don't know if I can add a website? Mods take it out if I can't. I go to afterdawn.com for any questions I have on video editing/conversion.

Hope this helps.:rolleyes:

[curiousgeorge]

Finally something I know a little about. Not so much steaming it to a Tivo, but converting to an mpg.

You can use two programs to achieve this, both are free.

First, you can not copy a DVD unless you own it, and are only using it for your own backup or use. That being said...

DVDFab (you don't have to buy the full version just to rip DVD's, but you can if you need/like the other functions) and VOB2MPG.

DVDFab will rip the DVD to your hard drive, and VOB2MPG will join all the VOB's to one seamless MPG.

Another way is to use DVDFab, and then change the portion of the movie (chapter) that you want from .vob to .mpg. The VOB file extension is an uncompressed MPG anyways.

Using VOB2MPG will make the file smaller (compress), and insure perfect audio sync. You can use video software to take out parts, or cut to your specified sizes.

Hope this helps.:rolleyes:

Thanks for the reply.

This is still an *almost* solution. I know how to rip the DVDs, I know how to transcode, but the problem is that some of the TV series DVDs have episodes that span VOBs. Some VOBs will have fragments of two episodes. I need to either stream the ISO, or output the DVD *per episode*, not per vob, so I get one episode per file. It seems like VLC is *thisclose* to being able to stream the whole ISO to the TiVoHD, so it's really frustrating.

[wmcbrine]

I've gone back and tried HME/VLC to stream ISOs, but it doesn't seem to recognize files with the ISO extension.You should read the whole HME/VLC thread, but the bottom line is to create an entry something like this in config.ini:

[DVD]
url=dvdsimple://movie.iso
needs_vlc=True

rather than trying to read it from a file share.

Like I say, I haven't tried it. I have used this method to play real DVDs, though.

Note that this will not give you the DVD menus. I'm not sure what it would do with a disc with multiple episodes -- play them straight through? It would depend how the disc was authored.

[Soulpatch]

When the VOB's are connected using VOB2MPG, you can use any video program to cut them up per episode. I haven't used it on a DVD with episodes, so it might connect each episode by itself. It is worth a try though.

As far as steaming you got me on that one, never done it, but if your program will steam a mpg then these are the best programs I have found for converting to mpgs.

I use Roxio Easy Media Creator 10, as my video editing software, but any should work.

[curiousgeorge]

You should read the whole HME/VLC thread, but the bottom line is to create an entry something like this in config.ini:

[DVD]
url=dvdsimple://movie.iso
needs_vlc=True

rather than trying to read it from a file share.

Like I say, I haven't tried it. I have used this method to play real DVDs, though.

Note that this will not give you the DVD menus. I'm not sure what it would do with a disc with multiple episodes -- play them straight through? It would depend how the disc was authored.

Okay, I got a DVD to work, but no love for an ISO of that DVD.

[jcthorne]

I must be retarded. The lack of documentation on Fair Use isn't helping. I can't get it to pull out the episodes from a TV Series DVD Do I have to do it manually, one episode at a time? There's an "auto" option, but that gets it wrong, too. Any tips?

After you open the iso file FUW presents you a list of program chains. Choose the episodes by selecting multiple chains the hit next. FUW will build the indexs for all the chains you selected.

The next screen allows you to pick subtitles and crop if necessary for encoding. When done press next.

Allow FUW to auto detect the frame types from the chains and then press next.

The next screen is the encoding options. For TivoHD select x264, Quantizer 26, Encoding Speed, Quality, Select the audio track as AC3 and then your output resolution (720x480 or 640x480 for NTSC TV episodes, 784x576 for PAL) Press Next

Press Process all sessions. Come back some time later.....

Hope that helps