Episodic Anime DVD to Multiple Files

[shiznit]

Ok, here's the deal. I've searched this forum for weeks, and couldn't find an answer to my question, or a general replacement to my workflow that would make me avoid my problem.

I have some anime DVD's of some full shows. I'm converting them to digital, trying to make dual-audio files with soft subs. I have both Mac and PC at my disposal (and of course, the original disks). Any recommendations on how to do this would be greatly appreciated.

As for more specifics, I'm currently ripping the DVD with MacTheRipper, using Handbrake to encode each episode into mp4's with two audio tracks, using SubRip to OCR the subtitles from the DVD, and using episode durations from quicktime to help me slice up the subtitle file appropriately. I then use Muxo to add the .srt to the mp4, make it an m4v, and it plays in Quicktime, but surprisingly not VLC. I'd like something that plays in VLC. Also, it seems that as I get more episodes into the series, the subtitle track becomes more and more out of sync. I don't know if this is because of rounding errors with the timecodes in my math (quicktime has an accuracy of .01, whereas SubRip has an accuracy of .001), or because SubRip thinks there's 24 fps when there's 23.976 fps.

As I've said, I've searched and searched and haven't been successful in finding anyone else who has had a similar question answered (especially the subtitles-further-out-of-sync thing). And don't let any part of my current (broken) workflow discourage any kind of suggestions. I'm open to toss the whole thing and start fresh.

[Esurnir]

Suboptimal solution which work with me.

In DVD decrypter I can choose which chapters to save and which not to save.

It works fine ^_^.

[shiznit]

Um, ok...

That left me with a 1GB VOB file, whereas compressed versions are ~300MB. It also didn't address my most important concern, which was the subtitles track, which isn't in the VOB file. It did teach me that each episode is a separate VOB file, which will help me make the subtitle files better (I'll try it out later).

Another concern still unaddressed is that my workflow produces m4v's that VLC doesn't like the subtitle track in. I can make dual-audio mkv files, which I know VLC supports, but I don't know how to add subtitles to mkv files. If anyone has any experience with this, please help.

[[P]ako]

MKVToolnix. Open, add video, audio and subtitles, change the name of the target file and give it a go.

[fibbingbear]

Originally Posted by shiznit

It did teach me that each episode is a separate VOB file...

It's been my experience that this isn't always the case. For example, The Slayers DVD VOBs are all over the place, where the VOBs will have around 2.5 episodes (and the files will end in random parts of episodes). I had to look at the PGC to figure out where each episode really began and ended... maybe this was some primitive form of DRM?

Anyway, it's not safe to assume VOB == episode, as it isn't always the case, although it may very well be for the DVDs you deal with.

[shiznit]

Thank you. I actually just realized that with Wolf's Rain. It has two episodes per vob file, but even so, it'll decrease the subtitle delay a lot just knowing that.

I'm trying out MKVToolnix now, going to see how well that works. As far as I know the avi container doesn't allow for soft subtitles, am I right? So I have to use mkv or m4v (or ogm)?

[Esurnir]

I'm not sure it's wise to follow pako's idea.

Right now I was thinking you wanted only to cut the vob to get only a vob with only the episode you wanted. Getting a 300MB file require "recompressing" the episode.

As for the subtitle. Sorry but I'm clueless there.

[RunningSkittle]

I usually use dvddecrypter with "split by cellid" checked and rip the entire disk. Then use dgindex to join and demux only the files from each episode.
its a lot easier than other methods.

[shiznit]

Thanks for the help so far, but several of you seem off the mark as to what I'm actually asking for. I'm not having any problems splitting the DVD up per episode. What I'm having trouble with is splitting the subtitles up per episode.

Pako has been the most help so far, in that I can now take my mkv files for each episode and add a soft subtitle track, but the subtitle tracks I'm making are still not in sync.

As for actually addressing the subtitles: What I've been doing so far is using mkvinfo to get precise durations for each episode, summing up those durations, subtracting that from the total duration provided by SubRip, and adding the difference back into each episode. This has reduced the subtitle delay from 3 seconds to only a half, but I feel like this should be a lot easier. I've tried doing two encodes, one to avi with hard subtitles, and one to mkv with the two audio tracks, so that I could have SubRip OCR the hard subs from the avi's and then add that subtitle track to the mkv. But I can't seem to get SubRip's hard sub OCR to work.

So now my only question remaining is: how can I get the subtitles for only one episode?

[CWR03]

Originally Posted by shiznit

So now my only question remaining is: how can I get the subtitles for only one episode?

I use SubRip to extract them individually - with all the disks I've processed it lists them by episode.

[allanon019]

When you use subrip make sure you clear the timecode everytime you rip a subtitle. You could also just close the program everytime too, but that's more annoying.

As for me I do the anime thing too here's the programs I use:
DVDfab
DVDshrink
MeGUI
MKVmerge
Vobsub or Subrip with Aegisub

[shiznit]

Wow! Thanks for your help everybody!

I've now got a system worked out that can grab subtitles on a per episode basis. Using DVD Decrypter, I rip the DVD using "split by cell id". Then I bring that into SubRip and OCR the subtitles on a per-episode basis (this was the key!). I then compress each episode into an mkv (I'm using Handbrake for this, but you guys showed me tons of ways), use mkvmerge to tack on the subtitle track, and Viola! A dual-audio mkv with properly timed subtitles.

Thanks again, I can now spend the next month converting my anime DVD stack to a more travel-friendly form factor (1 HDD)

[CWR03]

Originally Posted by shiznit

and Viola!

Glad you could fiddle around with it until you could figure things out...