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How do you identify TV series episodes

AHappyUser

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I'm ripping NYPD Blue and while I have the episode names on a particular DVD I don't know how to match each to an episode. i.e 4 files on a DVD, which one is ep 1, ep2, etc. They are not always in order and It's not easy to skim the movie to figure out the plot and match it to the episode description. Do you guys have any tricks of the trade? Maybe something to look for in the credits?

thanks,
Steve
 
honestly, i believe the quickest way is to play the disc in something like powerDVD or VLC. Skip ahead a little and note the timestamp. Then just go to CloneDVD2 (that's what i use), select an episode and skip ahead to that time and identify episodes that way. Don't know if there's an easier way to do it.
 
I use a video player like MPC-HC or VLC to play the DVD. Play each episode and note what track is being played. No need to worry about time stamps.
 
I'm ripping NYPD Blue and while I have the episode names on a particular DVD I don't know how to match each to an episode. i.e 4 files on a DVD, which one is ep 1, ep2, etc. They are not always in order and It's not easy to skim the movie to figure out the plot and match it to the episode description. Do you guys have any tricks of the trade? Maybe something to look for in the credits?

thanks,
Steve
Have been building a movie and television server for 3 years now. The best way to do this is to go to this website https://www.thetvdb.com/ to get the episode order for your dvd. First of all, the episodes are always in order on the dvd's. If you are ripping with shrink when you hit re author the main titles will be numbered in order of play. They may not be all grouped together or truly sequential, but the number's of the titles will be numbered from lowest number to highest number. They may be numbered 1,2,3,4 or they maybe 8, 13, 27, 35. All that matters is episode 1 or 8, is the lowest number and episode 4 or 35 is the last episode. Now if you are using Clone dvd, you will have to click on the title tab to get it to list the episodes by play order instead of file size.

Now for the problematic dvd's produced where all the episodes are in one big file. Shrink is the best way to handle these. First of all, find the main file size, then divide it by the number of episodes. Then use shrink to re author the file. The end and begin of an episode will be within 100 mb of your average episode length.

Unfortunately newer dvd's with television shows are loaded with extended versions and alternate endings that makes deciphering which episodes to rip out can be very frustrating. Parks and Recreation is the perfect example of this. Literally six episodes on the dvd each with a different something on them so there are 12 titles to chose from. Sometimes they are listed as 1, 1a, 2, 2a, 3, 3a. Other times they are listed as 1, 2, 3, 1a, 2a, 3a,. I could go on and on about the different authoring of dvd's but you are probably bored now.
 
If it's a DVD, I play it in VLC and look at what title it's playing.

If it's a Blu-ray, I play it in PowerDVD and match the run times of the MPLS. If there are more than one playlist with the same run time, I run Process Monitor (free Microsoft tool), filter the output on files ending in ".mpls" in the name to see which one it is.
 
First of all, the episodes are always in order on the dvd's.

That's not necessarily true. I've got countless TV series on DVD where the titles are a jumble. Worse, there are ones where all seems to be in order, except for a stay one here or there.
 
That's not necessarily true. I've got countless TV series on DVD where the titles are a jumble. Worse, there are ones where all seems to be in order, except for a stay one here or there.

Agree. For the most part they are in order buy NYPD Season 1 was not. Tracks are listed 8, 13, 27, 35 (an example) but order is really 8,13,35,27.
 
+1, That's not necessarily true ("the episodes are always in order on the dvd's" )

In Fact, NYPD Blue is one that presented with mixed episodes (using Shrink).

My practice is to pull episodes as listed and then (using vlc) play the disk or image.
The starting image after the intro is my reference.

Then start the corresponding 'pulled' episode and see that it matches. If there are only two episodes on a disk, then you only need check one... and watch for the 'extra' features which often are the size of an episode.

If you've got all the episodes pulled, but the volume label displayed at startup is wrong (using iso format). Imgburn has a tool which lets you change them. Quick and simple, rather than re-ripping.
 
Have been building a movie and television server for 3 years now. The best way to do this is to go to this website https://www.thetvdb.com/ to get the episode order for your dvd. First of all, the episodes are always in order on the dvd's.

I didn't realize thetvdb had DVD order, that's huge! I tried this with NYPD Season 1 but the listing is not complete.

As another example I tried CSI LasVegas season 1. Episodes printed on disc 1 are 100, 101, 103 & 104. Episode 102 is on disc 3. What's confusing is https://thetvdb.com/series/csi-crime-scene-investigation/seasons/dvd/1 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSI:_Crime_Scene_Investigation_(season_1) both say the episode 102 title is actually episode 11. I don't know what to think on this series.
 
It's not that uncommon for episodes to be filmed earlier, but aired later.
 
I didn't realize thetvdb had DVD order, that's huge! I tried this with NYPD Season 1 but the listing is not complete.

As another example I tried CSI LasVegas season 1. Episodes printed on disc 1 are 100, 101, 103 & 104. Episode 102 is on disc 3. What's confusing is https://thetvdb.com/series/csi-crime-scene-investigation/seasons/dvd/1 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSI:_Crime_Scene_Investigation_(season_1) both say the episode 102 title is actually episode 11. I don't know what to think on this series.
This is a major problem with dvd's, there is something called the airing order and there is the dvd order. Seinfeld is a mess of a TV series on dvd. Fortunately the tvdb gives you some options. If you look just under seasons, on the series home page you will see these options Official Order, DVD Order, Absolute Order. Fortunately Kodi gives you the option to pull the dvd order, however this still will not always account for 2 part episodes. This site, https://www.themoviedb.org/ have the dvd order for all their series so far, but they also split the two part episodes up. So if you have a show, mostly half hour shows that air an hour long episode, the episode will be split in their listing as part 1 and part 2. Basically themoviedb treats shows as if they are showing in syndication. Since I use Shrink a lot and it can split two part episodes very easily, I do so. Which means thetvdb will never have the episode listings right for me on dvd's with two part episodes shown as one episode.

TV series are very frustrating, I have pulled over 5000 episodes some have had me pulling my hair out.
 
Yeah, that's another problem. I have one show on DVD where the episodes are put in airing order (fine, I think most are). But, that turned out to be very bad. They had aired them VERY out of order. In one episode a main character died. In the next, he was back like nothing happened.
 
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