DVD Tamer Manual

Getting started

What you need

• Unencrypted DVD-Video: an ISO file or a VIDEO_TS folder. DVD Tamer doesn't read Blu-ray.
• VLC (64-bit on Windows; your distribution's on Linux), which plays the menus.
• ffmpeg, which writes the files. The Linux AppImage includes it.
• Optional: HandBrakeCLI for your HandBrake presets, and an Azure AI Vision key for sharper menu reading.

Links and install commands for all of them are on the download page.

Installing

Windows: run the installer. It installs for your user only (no administrator rights) into %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\DVD Tamer, and warns you if 64-bit VLC isn't installed. On first start, DVD Tamer copies VLC's DVD plugins into its own folder; uninstalling removes them.

Linux: make the AppImage executable and run it. If VLC (or, when you pick a HandBrake preset, HandBrakeCLI) is missing, DVD Tamer shows the command for your distribution and can run it for you after asking for your password.

First start

The Getting started guide shows how naming works, lets you test the optional Azure key, and imports your HandBrake presets if HandBrake is installed. Reopen it any time from Help > Getting started or Help > Naming power-ups.

Opening a disc

Drop an ISO on the window, or use Open ISO… under the player (Ctrl+O). For a VIDEO_TS folder, use File > Open folder (VIDEO_TS)….

Where the files go

Each disc you open asks where its files should go, starting from the last folder you used. You choose one of two layouts:

This is my library folder: make the Plex folders inside it

Pick your library's top folder. Movies go in Movies/Title (Year)/, TV in TV Shows/Show/Season 01/. If your library calls those folders something else ("Films", "Television"), rename them right there; the names apply to every disc and are also in Preferences.

Put the files directly in this folder

For your own layout: pick the movie's or season's folder. Files keep their library names; movie extras get the inline suffix media servers understand (Making Of-behindthescenes.mkv), and TV extras get a type folder (Featurettes/).

Change a disc's folder later with Change… next to it in the queue. Other discs keep their own folders.

Discs on a network share

Reading a disc over the network is slow, especially its menus (minutes instead of seconds on a busy share). Turn on Preferences > Output > Work on a local copy: a disc on a share is copied to this computer before it opens, and a rip to a share is written locally first, then copied over. The copies are removed when you're done with the disc. It needs enough free space for the disc.

Choosing what to rip

The disc's own menu plays in the window. Use it like a remote:

• Click a button that plays something, and it's added to the queue (a short message confirms it). Click a button that opens another menu, and DVD Tamer goes there.
• Right-click a button to play it instead.
• Or use the keys: arrows to move, Enter to press, M for the disc's main menu, Q to queue the highlighted button. The same controls are under the player, with play/pause, stop and chapter skip.

Everything on this disc

The list beside the player shows every title on the disc with its name and length, including titles no visible button reaches (easter eggs). Press + to queue a title or ▶ to play it. Tick all to also show very short titles and duplicates.

Queue in one go

Queue Likely Items

A movie's main feature plus extras of 3 minutes or more; for TV, every episode.

Queue All + Menus

Everything on the disc, including every title a menu button plays, with the disc menu turned on so the menus work like the disc's.

Disc menu (menu bar)

Also Queue everything, Queue all episodes and Queue all extras.

A play-all title isn't ripped next to its episodes: it's the same video. When a disc has only a play-all title, its episodes are cut out of it at their chapters.

How names are found

You don't need to look anything up. As soon as a disc opens, DVD Tamer works out what it is and what everything on it is called.

1. What disc is this?

The title comes from the disc first: the text on its main menu, then the folder and file name (The West Wing - The Complete First Season/Disc 4 gives the show, season and disc), then the volume label. You see the result at the top of the queue: title, movie or TV, year, season and first episode. Edit any of them and automation leaves your edit alone.

2. Reading the menus

In the background, a hidden second player visits every menu screen that names something (main menu, episode lists, special features) and reads the button text. It only follows buttons that lead to other menus, so it never plays the film. The status bar shows its progress. On Windows it reads with the built-in Windows OCR, or with Azure AI Vision if you've set it up; on Linux it needs Azure.

When the menu you're looking at in the player is read too, that read counts more than the background one.

3. Looking it up

The title is confirmed online: TheTVDB, then TMDb, then TVmaze for TV; TMDb, then TheTVDB for movies. The real title and year are filled in and, for TV, the season's episode list is loaded. All three are built in; no keys or accounts.

4. Putting it together

• Episodes are numbered in menu order and matched to the season by their on-screen names, so a disc that starts at episode 9 is numbered from 9.
• Extras get their names from their buttons, and their type (featurette, deleted scene, trailer, interview, behind the scenes…) from their name or from the menu page they're on.
• Specials: an extra whose name matches one of the show's specials is filed as Season 00/Show - s00eNN - Name.
• Bonus features aren't episodes: an episode-length title on a features page whose name isn't in the season becomes an extra.
• Feature-length episodes: a long title whose name matches an episode (a two-hour finale) is filed as that episode.
• Films over several discs: when a disc's feature is clearly part of a longer film, it's filed as Title (Year) - pt1, pt2….
• Other versions: a second full-length cut (widescreen and fullscreen, say) is filed beside the film as Title (Year) - Fullscreen, which media servers show as one movie with two versions.
• Short programmes: on a disc with nothing feature-length (children's videos, collections), the longest title becomes the feature, so your server shows it.

When there are no words

A title only ever gets a name from words. A button that's a picture is named Hidden Menu Title N once its menu has been read; a title no menu plays is Off-Menu Title N; before its menu is read, a title is just Title N. These are always marked for checking.

Checking and fixing names

Most discs need nothing from you. When something might be off, DVD Tamer says so instead of guessing quietly.

The ? mark

An item whose name came from menu text alone, or whose episode number came from disc order only, gets a small amber ? in the queue. Hover it to see why. It's probably fine; it's worth a glance.

Name box

Type a name and it sticks. Clear it to go back to automatic.

Episode picker

Pick the right episode from the season's list. The episodes after it on the disc are renumbered to follow.

Type

Choose an extra's type (featurette, deleted scene…) yourself; automatic typing then stops for it.

↺

Undo your changes to an item and return it to automatic naming.

The wrong show or movie

Click the link under the title, or use Disc > Choose the catalogue match…. You'll see everything the catalogues found, a search box, It's in no catalogue (for home videos and the like) and Automatic. Your choice sticks for the disc until you pick Automatic.

The quick check before ripping

When you press Rip, any items with a made-up name, no name, or an episode number from disc order alone are listed first, each with its name box (or episode picker) and a ▶ to play it. Fix what needs it and press Rip, or Back to the queue.

Reading the menus again

Disc > Read menu text again

Reads the menu showing in the player again, for when it was read mid-fade.

Disc > Stop reading the menus (also "Stop reading" in the status bar)

Ends the background reading and keeps the names so far.

Disc > Read all the menus again

Starts the background reading over.

Ripping

Choose the output

Next to the Rip button:

MKV (lossless)

Exactly what's on the disc: every audio track and subtitle in the disc's own order, with their languages and the disc's subtitle colours, chapters, and closed captions as a text subtitle track. No re-encoding.

MP4 (built-in)

An H.264 MP4 made with ffmpeg (quality CRF 17), with audio copied where MP4 can hold it and captions as text. Subtitles are off by default.

Your HandBrake presets

Every preset you imported (Tools > Import HandBrake presets…), used exactly as you set it up. HandBrake reads the disc itself, so there's no temporary copy. If HandBrake would read a different title than DVD Tamer means, that one item is ripped to MKV first and encoded from that.

When ripping starts

Rip waits for the naming, but only for what can still change a name in your queue: an online lookup that's running, or menu pages that name a queued item. Meanwhile it says Waiting for names… or Looking up names…. Stop reading and rip with the names so far starts at once. Once ripping starts, nothing in the queue is renamed.

Before anything is written, DVD Tamer checks that every destination folder can actually take a file, so a full or read-only share fails right away, not two hours in.

When it finishes

Each item shows its result. A warning that the disc is damaged means the file was written, but DVD Tamer had to skip bad sectors or repair broken timing on that title, or its length differs from what the disc says. Play it to check.

A failed HandBrake encode keeps the lossless MKV in place, so nothing is lost.

Disc menus (Open Video Menu)

DVD Tamer fully supports Open Video Menu, an open format for DVD-style menus on ordinary video files. With the Disc menu switch (under the output picker) set to On, DVD Tamer writes the disc's menus next to your files as one .ovmz file. Your video files aren't changed.

On means the whole disc

• The menus come along faithfully: artwork, motion backgrounds and music, highlights, scene selection, special features, audio and subtitle choices, angles, transitions, and the disc's own logic (what plays after what, remembered choices, random play).
• When you press Rip, every title the menus lead to is queued for you, so every button works. Other camera angles are queued as their own files.
• Short clips the menus play between screens go in a disc clips folder that media servers are told to ignore.
• Turn it Off to get only the files you picked. Set the default in Preferences > Disc menus.

Where it goes

The menu file is named like its content (Title (Year).ovmz, Show (Year) - Season 01 - Disc 1.ovmz) and goes in the folder that holds all of that disc's files. Each disc of a set gets its own menu, playing its own files.

Menus for files you already ripped

Open the disc again, let it finish reading its menus, and use Tools > Make disc menu from ripped files…. Point it at the library folder, or the movie's or show's folder; DVD Tamer matches the files to the disc's titles by name, then by length, and writes (or rewrites) the menu without ripping again. The menu is always complete. Buttons for titles you didn't rip stay on the menu but do nothing; the summary tells you how many.

Watching them

On a TV, use ovmplayer (Google TV, Android TV, Roku) with the Open Video Menu plugin for Jellyfin, or the menu server beside Plex. See the download page and openvideomenu.org. Players that don't support menus just play the files.

Several discs

Open the next disc while the last one is still in the queue: its items stay, and it keeps being named in the background. Each disc in the queue has its own destination and names, and ✕ removes a disc and its items. Rip runs the discs one after another.

Box sets work out their own numbering: discs of a TV season continue each other's episodes from the menus' names, and a film over two discs becomes pt1 and pt2, even when you rip the discs on different days.

File names and folders

Pick your media server's layout in Preferences > File naming: Plex (the default), Plex, with catalogue IDs, Jellyfin, Emby or Kodi. Or edit any field for your own; a live example shows the result, and DVD Tamer warns when a layout would stop your server matching (no year, no episode number).

Put a part in <…> to drop it when a token inside is empty: {Title}< ({Year})> gives Title when there's no year. Use {{ and }} for literal braces.

Preferences

Edit > Preferences…

Output

The default destination for new discs; a temporary folder for rips (default: a .dvdtamer-temp folder inside the output folder); Work on a local copy (see Opening a disc); the Movies and TV folder names.

File naming

The layout preset or your own templates (see above).

Disc menus

Whether new discs start with the disc menu On or Off, and whether to write a log file (dvdtamer-log.jsonl) in each destination folder.

Tools

The VLC folder, if it isn't found by itself.

Reading menu text (OCR)

Your Azure AI Vision endpoint and key, with a Test connection button. Auto uses Azure when it's set up, otherwise Windows' built-in OCR.

Naming

Test buttons for the built-in TheTVDB and TMDb lookups. There's nothing to enter.

Encoding

Where HandBrakeCLI and ffmpeg are, if they aren't found by themselves, and your HandBrake presets: Import from HandBrake or Import file… (a preset file you exported from HandBrake).

Setting up Azure

Azure AI Vision reads menu text Windows' OCR misses: stylized logo fonts, text over moving video, dim buttons. On Linux it's what reads the menus at all. It's optional.

1. Sign in at portal.azure.com. A free account works; Microsoft asks for a card to verify you, and the free tier isn't charged.
2. Create a Computer Vision resource and choose the Free F0 pricing tier.
3. Open it, then Keys and Endpoint. Copy KEY 1 and the Endpoint into Preferences > Reading menu text (or the Getting started guide) and press Test connection.

The free tier allows 5,000 reads a month and 20 a minute; a disc usually needs a few dozen, and DVD Tamer paces itself to stay inside the limit. If Azure fails during a disc, Windows OCR takes over for that disc.

Troubleshooting

Privacy

DVD Tamer runs on your computer and has no account, tracking or analytics. It goes online only for these:

• Name lookups: the disc's title (and season, for TV) is searched on TheTVDB, TMDb and TVmaze, under their own privacy policies.
• Azure, only if you set it up: pictures of the disc's menu screens are sent to your own Azure resource to read their text.

Nothing else leaves your computer: not your files, your library or your logs. Your settings and Azure key stay in your user folder.

This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB. Metadata provided by TheTVDB; please consider adding missing information or subscribing at thetvdb.com. TV data from TVmaze, CC BY-SA.

Files and logs

If a disc misbehaves, the scout-*.log (menu reading) and rip-*.log (ripping) files from that time show what DVD Tamer did, step by step.

DVD Tamer saves its settings carefully: a damaged settings file is kept as settings.json.corrupt-….bak instead of being lost.