DVD Chapter Hosted Service

[ebergemann]

When importing my DVDs I would prefer to have all of my chapter titles typed out so they show up with the true title as opposed to "Chapter n". The problem with that, though, is that it just takes too much time. Has anyone started to set up a simple hosted service that we could get Handbrake to use so that we can all collaborate and not have to waste time typing out all of the chapter titles?

[ssj2_goha]

When importing my DVDs I would prefer to have all of my chapter titles typed out so they show up with the true title as opposed to "Chapter n". The problem with that, though, is that it just takes too much time. Has anyone started to set up a simple hosted service that we could get Handbrake to use so that we can all collaborate and not have to waste time typing out all of the chapter titles?

Actually yeah I have I just need people to start uploading/e-mail me the csv files for dvds.

[ebergemann]

Just let me know your email and I will start sending you some csv files. It would be better if a hosted service was utilized by Handbrake in a similar manner that Gracenote is used by iTunes. Let me know if I can help with it any.

[rhester]

It would be even better if a) this new hosted service was met with approval by the MPAA, who will almost certainly shut it down at once after it becomes 'big' enough and b) had a multimillion dollar annual budget like Gracenote to stop angry hordes of users from descending upon the HandBrake developers when your site goes down and it appears HandBrake is "broken".

Understand now that, while well-intentioned, this is a colossal waste of time?

Rodney

[maubp]

It might work - Gracenote started out as the free cddb service http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDDB but I guess Rodney has a good point about the lawyers.

If you do try this anyway, do try and come up with a better solution to identifying the discs - the CDDB ID had a lot of collisions (duplicate IDs for very different CDs) and on top of that there were issue with the precise calculation of the track lengths needed (silences and gaps - I forget the details) which could be a handicap depending on how you were reading the CD.

[ssj2_goha]

It might work - Gracenote started out as the free cddb service http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDDB but I guess Rodney has a good point about the lawyers.

If you do try this anyway, do try and come up with a better solution to identifying the discs - the CDDB ID had a lot of collisions (duplicate IDs for very different CDs) and on top of that there were issue with the precise calculation of the track lengths needed (silences and gaps - I forget the details) which could be a handicap depending on how you were reading the CD.

Baiscally I set up a small file that identifies the disc by the upc code (no duplicates). For those discs that are part of a box set I also have a set up for them. I won't go ingot all the details here, But feel free to e-mail me or PM me if you want to help with the service. As far as the MPAA I really see no reason why they would want to take down the service because in all reality why I set up the service was so that free programs like vlc and others that play dvds would be able to have the chapter names while playing the dvd. This use is honestly just a bonus.

All the files will have is a small image file that is the cover of the dvd(not hi-res in anyway, about the same size as the one amazon uses), a csv file for the chapters, and a csv file for the disc info.

What would the MPAA argure with this information for?

[rhester]

All the files will have is a small image file that is the cover of the dvd(not hi-res in anyway, about the same size as the one amazon uses), a csv file for the chapters, and a csv file for the disc info.

What would the MPAA argure with this information for?

The same reason why it's licensed by Gracenote for CDs - any information associated with the DVD, including cover art and likely chapter names, are considered copyrighted and protected material that you are redistributing without license.

I'm no lawyer, but I wouldn't take the chance myself.

Rodney

[Mucx]

The issue here is copyright. It is illegal to rip or copy anything from a DVD. (*cough* suck it! *cough)
However, perhaps this type of online service could be done if looked at from a different angle...albeit a more labour intensive one.

Why not create a database of chapter names and times (including iTunes style cropped DVD jackets) that aren't CVS files? I mean literally creating database or list of chapter marker names, time stamps and information that someone actually hand typed and submitted via a online form? Yes, more work but surely that isn't illegal?

[rhester]

You're still reusing copyrighted cover art without permission.

Rodney

[Mucx]

You're still reusing copyrighted cover art without permission.

Rodney

What are you Mr. Miserable lol?.
Look how many sites there are that hold all sorts of cover art.
You can pull it off of Amazon easy enough. There are even commercial applications that have that built in.

But yes, this is still in that slightly off white (not quite grey) area so...better safe than sorry.

Of course I think such a venture, even without cover-art and featuring full textual metadata would rock (for media centers aside from HB). However, I highly doubt the HB team would support it even if you went to that much trouble. Prove me wrong guys...prove me wrong.

[rhester]

You code the support, provide the diffs, and make sure you'll continue to maintain it and answer questions about it, and I don't see a problem.

Rodney

[maubp]

Baiscally I set up a small file that identifies the disc by the upc code (no duplicates). For those discs that are part of a box set I also have a set up for them. I won't go ingot all the details here, ...

I guess you can handle double sided DVDs and multi-disc films (e.g. Lord of the Rings) just like any other box set.

When you say upc, are you talking about the 12 digit UPC-A barcode? Are you aware of the 13 digits EAN system (an international superset, just stick a zero at the start of a 12 digit UPC barcode)? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Article_Number

Finally, is it possible for software to get the UPC/EAN from reading the DVD data directly? If not, you're going to have to get the user to type this in (or use a barcode scanner), which would be tedious. The point of the CDDB ID was it was constructed automatically from the track lengths - the user didn't have to do anything.

[ssj2_goha]

Baiscally I set up a small file that identifies the disc by the upc code (no duplicates). For those discs that are part of a box set I also have a set up for them. I won't go ingot all the details here, ...

I guess you can handle double sided DVDs and multi-disc films (e.g. Lord of the Rings) just like any other box set.

When you say upc, are you talking about the 12 digit UPC-A barcode? Are you aware of the 13 digits EAN system (an international superset, just stick a zero at the start of a 12 digit UPC barcode)? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Article_Number

Finally, is it possible for software to get the UPC/EAN from reading the DVD data directly? If not, you're going to have to get the user to type this in (or use a barcode scanner), which would be tedious. The point of the CDDB ID was it was constructed automatically from the track lengths - the user didn't have to do anything.

The reason I chose the UPC (yes UPC-A code) is so that people would have to have the original box to rip. That is a little bit protection against piracy (keep the mpaa off my butt).

<edit>
I'm working on a small multi-platform program to index and create the .dvd files i will be hosting. I will post a link to the program once it is done(along with file specification)

[DGtlRift]

I found that there is a project that is already (apparently) doing this. Here's a link to the code snippit:
http://girderplugins.cvs.sourceforge.ne ... iew=markup
It looks like it pulls that data off of a microsoft site in the form of XML, but I am unsure how the discId is calculated.

Perhaps handbrake could also do this?

[DGtlRift]

The link I found in the code snippit seems to be dead, but looking through the wireshark trace when media player sees a "Sum of All Fears" inserted comes up with this
http://metaservices.windowsmedia.com/pa ... 91cbcd60ff
Again not sure how the crc is computed from the disk, but it does have all the chapter names, which could be used by handbrake.

[rhester]

Guys,

We aren't going to use a homegrown service for this, and we sure as hell aren't going to start glomming off of proprietary data hosted by Microsoft (and no doubt paid for by them to someone else actually providing the content).

Rodney

[maubp]

Check out recent versions of MetaX, which will look up chapter names from a new service called "Tag Chimp":
http://www.tagchimp.com/docs/metax/search-and-tag/
http://www.kerstetter.net/page53/page54/page54.html

It looks when TagChimp doesn't have the chapter names, you can type them in and get MetaX to submit them.

Given HB's existing integration with MetaX, this sounds like a very nice system for those using an Apple Mac

[ssj2_goha]

well, with the advent of tagchimp.com I humble ask for this topic to be locked.