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First, let me say that ripping and managing TV shows is far more annoying that just movies. The amount of manual work is much higher because you‘re dealing with 10-20+ episodes a season and maybe 5-20+ seasons. And then you bump into numbering issues between aired-date numbering vs original...

I’ve discussed a Windows-centric experience with HTPC in my older thread. https://www.hometheaterforum.com/community/threads/2016-htpc-for-catfisch-cinema.353667/

Does Infuse not recognize alt titles?

In Emby it's a simple matter of appending " - Alt Title" to a movie file name. So I'll have in a movie folder: Blockbuster Movie (2022) - HD.mkv Blockbuster Movie (2022) - UHD.mkv And then Emby lists them in the client software to be selected between.

You can generally setup multiple versions in a single folder. You can then select for playback the specific version you want. I do this with HD and 4K and have also done it with 2D and 3D and theatrical and directors cuts. Each server has it’s own approach for naming conventions.

Writeable discs, I believe, are very dark and look almost black. I’ve gotten a few of those – possibly unintentional gray market / pirated discs — and my drive won’t read them.

Ironically, I was reminded this week that i want to upgrade to 4K because UHD discs are often much easier to rip than blu. (Except I still have to deal with blu because I like special features.)

Is it blu or UHD? Is it a “black” disc, such as used in low-volume production? Those are always a problem for me. I don’t rip a lot or much quantity these days, but the only problems I have presently are: “black” discs from writeable discs; brand new UHD; and Blu with obnoxious main title...

I don't use a standalone NAS, but have my Windows HTPC configured with 4 drives in a RAID configuration. (At the time it was the best compromise for cost, simplicity, and usability for me. And it's configured so I can recover the data from the drives if the PC itself dies.) I've looked at NAS...

I use Emby. Its playlist feature doesn’t have interstitial titles. Though I think the title appears in the lower left of each new video for a second.

You’ll have to lookin the Reddit forums on shucking to get the details. My vague recollection is there’s a pin that works in a case, but can’t be enabled when used as a raw drive. So you tape it off so it’s not activated and enables the drive to work. It’s not a universal thing. But I took the...

I taped the pin (albeit with packing tape instead of proper kapton because I don't have any), just to be safe. That was the most painful part.

I kinda wish I had physical space in my HTPC and needed more capacity just so I could go buy and shuck a 14TB drive. :D But my disc buying has slowed dramatically and I’ve got several TB free space after adding the 8TB drive two years ago.

Time and effort. No guarantee it’s a Red NAS drive. Used to be in a specific line of WD. Maybe not anymore. Formally, no warranty having pulled from case. But practically, no downside besides the time and effort. At least when I did it.

Shucking was pretty easy. But an afternoon to do it all. For me, worth the money saved and two years later, no problems.

Emby had some specific features I liked when I was trying out the options in 2016, so I went with it. But they’re all substantially similar, with slightly different strengths. Emby has iOS and AppleTV apps. Because the naming conventions are basically standard, you can often install multiple...

In Emby, it just has “Extras”. I don’t bother to categorize bonus features, just put everything into the Extras folder. Sometimes a bonus feature is a short that’s listed in IMDB and such. If the file is named just so, it will show up as a movie, and then can break the Extras in general. At...

Here are some links I had bookmarked when I was figuring out converting MPA to AAC and MP3 https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Encode/AAC https://superuser.com/questions/370625/ffmpeg-command-to-convert-mp3-to-aac https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3255674/convert-audio-files-to-mp3-using-ffmpeg I...

Yes. You want executables. Unless compiling open source tools is your jam. :) I’ve used other command line tools like Ruby and Python. So Homebrew can feel like an easier option in some cases. )

I think ffmpeg is available for your toaster! There’s a version for everything. :) That’s interesting. I’ve got PDVD 16. I don’t think it can do any of that. It’s purely playback AFAIK.

MKVToolNix won’t do the transcode, last I checked. I use ffmpeg for that. ffmpeg -i "Movie (YYYY) Commentary.mka" -acodec aac “Movie (YYYY) Commentary.m4a" You can install it in your Mac. I think I use Homebrew to install current ffmpeg. https://brew.sh/

@Nelson Au I’ve extracted bits of music and audio a number of times, including a dozen commentary tracks I’ve turned into “podcasts” to listen to on the go. MKVToolNix can export the audio track per se. It can also break it into sub pieces (it’s kind of clunky, but works for me since I don’t...

Some few discs are authored by people who care: there are only the files for the exact main feature and special features and they're actually named! And some discs are driven by corporate guidelies hostile to HTP enthusiasts, that vomit up dozens of fake movie playlists and worse. And most are...

I mostly go by file durations and checking the first few seconds against the original DVD play back to find special features and trailers. For finding main movie, it’s a combo of: 1) Largest file size 2) Duration has to match 3) There’s a Windows program that shows the playlist being used as as...

TL;DR You can delete all those files. Unless you keep special features, then you do have to sort the wheat from the chaff.

That happens commonly with rips. My understanding is that MakeMKV demuxes all the individual files, which are all those scenes. And it also demuxes the playlists on the disc, which stitches together the ensemble of those scenes into the full movie and the director’s cut. Where it gets...

Ethernet. I preserve all English audio tracks, including Atmos. So it’s available even if I’m in a room that doesn’t have Atmos speakers. HDR and Dolby Vision are there UHD stuff I’m really unsure about with HTPC.

Did a quick try playing a couple minutes of Knives Out in UHD with the Atmos track on my Sony 950H using the TV’s Emby app. Worked fine, played smooth, and the audio came through. My LG TV can’t handle the Atmos track with its app. (I don’t know if it was handling HDR or Dolby Vision. I’m not...

MakeMKV supports Dolby Vision as of sometime 2020, maybe September. Likewise, Plex, Emby, etc. also support DV now IIUC. There are quirks and caveats. But check the forums for details, you may now be able to get DV from your HTPC system.

I haven't really tried playing them since my projector is HD and my AppleTV's are HD. But I've got two 4K TVs with built in Emby apps, so I can give it a go sometime.