First off, I'll say that this is not a post to complain about ratDVD. I'm very happy with the idea behind it (although the implementation is undergoing some needed upgrades I'm sure) and it works pretty great for me. I consider myself a pretty savvy ratDVD user and I've ratted over 200 DVDs to date.

That being said, I have a few issues with the tag image capability of rat DVD. The list goes as follows:

1.) somtimes the tag lookup feature will find the IMDB entry for a movie and pull down all the text info for the movie but leave the image field blank DESPITE the fact that if I look up the movie directly on IMDB, there is most certainly an image available for the movie. This happened to me several intermittent times when trying to tag DVDs I ripped, but is certainly the exception rather than the rule.

2.) OK, so given issue #1, I'll save the image from IMDB to my computer, then try to use the "Add..." button on the Tag screen of ratDVD to manually add the IMDB image to the file. The image shows up on the Tag screen and I hit "Save" to save the Tag information, but in reality, it doesn't actually save the image to the file. Even reopening the tag screen of the "saved" file does not display the image I supposedly saved.

3.) Now that I'm in situation #2, I can't even try to "add.." the image again because now that the file has been tagged (although with incomplete information) and saved, the tag fields are no longer accessible for editing- EVEN on the same machine the file was created on.

I understand that the creator said that ratDVD will block editing tag information for the sake of keeping the world from editing and mistagging files (a commendable attempt to keep these files properly tagged), but as I understand it, the original creator of the file is supposed to have access to the tagg info for editing- BUT I DON'T! so once a file is saved, no matter how complete the tags are, it's a done deal and the tags are untouchable by anyone. This kinda sucks because now instead of having incorrectly tagged files floating around, there will just be incomplete or improperly tagged files floating around that no one can change!

I saw somewhere that the creator is talking about granting more extensive access to the tagging of ratDVD file in a future update, but has anyone experienced these problems, or better yet, found a way to solve them?

I got word back from Splinter and we're all bunked for image tags for now:

Hi Matt,

you are right. I can see the problems here also and will try to fix
them. I am currently very busy finishing the next version so I am not
sure if i can get it into this version. If not, there's always a next
version ;-)

Thanks for letting me know...

Regards, Splinter

It's awesome that he responded to me... at least no I don't have to worry about anything on my end. We'll just have to wait for a solution.

I got word back from Splinter and we're all bunked for image tags for now:

Hi Matt,

you are right. I can see the problems here also and will try to fix
them. I am currently very busy finishing the next version so I am not
sure if i can get it into this version. If not, there's always a next
version ;-)

Thanks for letting me know...

Regards, Splinter

It's awesome that he responded to me... at least no I don't have to worry about anything on my end. We'll just have to wait for a solution.

I have also had this same issue and I think I have found a way around it.

I Don't try to tag the movie when I encode it. I wait until after it is encoded reopen the file in RatDVD and do a look up in IMDB, and save it. I have never had a problem doing it this way. I even have some movies that are not even an option in IMDB due to them being my childrens movies. I usually download the pics from Netflix.com and add add them after the encoding. I have also never had a problem doing it that way either.

Hope that helps to fix your problem and track down the problem within RatDVD.

simply open the ratDVD file with Zip or Rar Program (ratDVD = Zip)

go after you saved the Tags(in ratDVD) into the Folder(inside the Zip): INFO\
inside is the Image you added and a file called content.xml export the xml
open it you will find your added infos there + a XML Tag named just add the filename (only filename no path!) of the image if you still want to edit any other aspect of the Tags do it
then save the xml and replace it with the one from the Zip
viola
Image is viewable Tags are editable
sure the drawback is that it takes a long time with Zip/Rar to replace the file
maybe someone know a faster program to do this?
(like ratDVD? it takes only some secs 1-2? for it to add the files or is that a "replace" issue?)
btw when saving the file use no compression! as far as i know it wont work if you use compression!
(for first try i would make a copy of a ratDVD and edit that one instead the original!)

I am trying to get your instructions to work. I am having problems with adding the content.xml file back into the ratDVD ZIP archive. I think the problem is that my 7-Zip is compressing the file when I add it back in, instead of storing it. Can you help me with how you do it please?

On another note, doesn't manipulating a ratDVD archive screw up the CRC?

Thank you