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  1. Member
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    HOW TO BATCH AUTHOR COMPLIANT DVDS - THE EASY WAY

    I would just like to start by saying that just two years ago I was a newbie. I have acquired a lot of knowledge from vcdhelp.com and now I wish to share.

    With my method you will be able to author as many dvds as you would like without having to be in front of your computer. With the tools that I will list you can have menus and such but this guide is catered to people who do not need menus. This method at first will seem to be quite complicated, but I PROMISE YOU, after doing it once or twice it will seem so simple. YOU DO NOT NEED TO BE AN EXPERT.

    You MUST first prepare your film by encoding it to a DVD COMPLIANT MPEG2. A lot of people use TmpGenc to do this, but I personally can not sit around for 8 hours to encode one movie. I would suggest using Mainconcept MPEG Encoder. With a 2.2 ghz PC I encoded one whole movie in 1 hour and the quality was just as good as the source.
    Plus it lets you batch encode........SWEET!!!!!

    Once you have encoded your mpeg(s), these are the tools you will need:

    1.) Gui for Dvdauthor (don't let this program scare you. I will explain everything)

    2.) DvdShrink


    Now lets begin. Shall we!!

    __________________________________________________ ____________


    1.) First open Gui for Dvdauthor.Then you need to hit the Def. Settings button. This is where you would define things like aspect ratio and such (I really hope I don't need to explain this). The important thing is you need to define the output directory. Make a separate folder like "vob" within your movie directory (GFD can do this for you) and set that as your output directory (the beta version lets you set a separate temp directory). In the picture below I have put a red rectangle around the items you need to set and what to set them to (you have to figure out if the aspect ratio is 4:3 or 16:9).


    2.) Navigate to your movie file. Make sure the file has no spaces. - This is important!!!!


    3.) Select this file and then drag it any where into the main window.


    4.) Once you do this, a dialog box will pop-up..........This is where you would add additional audio files, subtitles, etc. For now leave everything at its default and hit OK.

    If you have a second part of the movie just drag it over like you did the first one..........BUT YOU MUST DO THEM IN THE ORDER AT WHICH YOU WOULD LIKE THEM TO PLAY!!!

    5.) Now you will need to hit the Create Batch button. Basically what this will do is create a Mainbatch.bat file as well as other things you will need to author your dvd. Once the process is done (in about 15 seconds) close the program.

    Reopen it again and do the same thing all over again for your second movie taking care to set separate output folders for each movie (step 1).

    6.) Now after your done creating batches for all of your movies you need to call them. This is where some knowledge on how to write batch files would be helpful but is not necessary. Create a batch file in any directory you would like and call it something like start.bat (I just right click and select new text file, select the text file, hit F2 and rename it what I want). THE EXTENSION MUST BE .bat


    7.) You you need to right click this file and hit edit. In all of the directories for your movies there resides a Mainbatch.bat file. You defined where this went when you set the output directory (remember step 1??). Basically what you are doing is editing the start.bat file so it will activate each mainbatch.bat file. Following me so far?..........Good! Let's continue......

    8.) When you edit your batch file it needs to look like this..........


    Lets take a closer look line by line:

    1.) CD D:\test\test\vob - this is you telling windows where to find the mainbatch.bat file. THIS IS A MUST BECAUSE THE BATCH FILES DO NOT HAVE A FULL PATH. Or at least that's how it was explained to me.

    2.) Call mainbatch.bat - this is you activating the mainbatch.bat file (the actually authoring process).

    - And then you repeat for the next movie. Pay close attention to the picture I provided.

    NOTE: IF YOUR USING VERSION 0.83 OR NEWER, MAINBATCH.BAT WILL BE LOCATED IN THE TEMP DIRECTORY THAT WOULD BE SET IN "DEF. SETTINGS".

    The easiest way to do this is to navigate to where the mainbatch.bat file is and copy and paste from the address bar (see picture from step 6).

    Once you are done, save the .bat file and close notepad. To start batch authoring just double click the start.bat file and wait a few minutes (more like 10 - 15 minutes per movie) for it to finish. You will see a dos window pop-up during this.

    Only continue from here if you are satisfied with the total file size of your vobs located in your "vob" folder (should not exceed 4.35 GB) and you would like to keep the menus that you created. If not, lets shrink these babies back down and get rid of the menus....................


    This is where DvdShrink comes in...............
    (freeware)




    1.) Open the program. Select "Open Files" and navigate to your first "vob" folder. And then Hit "OK". It will take a few seconds to analyze the tracks.


    2.) When it is done analyzing, select "Re-author". You then double-click ONLY the tracks in the order at which you would like them to play. Then select backup. Select the output folder (I would put the folder in the directory of the movie and call it "vob2". Then hit OK.


    I use dvdshrink because it is very fast and the quality is excellent.


    Note: If you would like to keep the menus, select "Full Disc" instead then hit backup.

    DvdShrink will be done in about 15 min. depending on your cpu speed. Repeat the DvdShrink steps for all your movies.

    When you are done the only thing you need to keep within the movie directory is the "vob2" folder. Everything else can be deleted.

    And that's it you are done.


    I wrote this guide because I had about 60 movies to encode and then author in a short period of time. Hopefully this will work for you as well. Thank you and if anyone has any questions or any ideas on how I can improve this guide let me know.
    Nothing is impossible for DiLeMmA says so!
    See my guide on how to batch author dvds!
    https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=255213
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  2. Excellent guide. Now shrink the graphics by 50% and repost them please. At 1152x864 res, I still get scroll bars.
    BTW, I'm going to try your method later today
    Cheers, Jim
    My DVDLab Guides
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  3. Member
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    Will do..
    Nothing is impossible for DiLeMmA says so!
    See my guide on how to batch author dvds!
    https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=255213
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  4. Member
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    Done!
    Nothing is impossible for DiLeMmA says so!
    See my guide on how to batch author dvds!
    https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=255213
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  5. Member Soopafresh's Avatar
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    Great guide. I've been intimidated by the DVD Author GUI, but you made it much easier to understand. I'm gonna try it out this weekend. Thanks.
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  6. very nice guide! I looked at this program when I first started doing this stuff a few months ago and said "forget it" and paid for TDA. I think I"ll try this one again.
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  7. Member
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    Yeh, with this program you have to really read the documentation. Then it all makes sense. Thanks a lot guys.
    Nothing is impossible for DiLeMmA says so!
    See my guide on how to batch author dvds!
    https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=255213
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  8. Member
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    how to load GUI for dvdauthor?
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  9. how to load GUI for dvdauthor?
    Download it, install it and start it as you would do with any other windows program too. In case of troubles, just ask again.
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  10. Member
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    @ Dilemma
    i'm new with GUI for dvdauthor,i read about a few minutes ago and your guide is impressive!!
    the GUI seems cool and your guide is very clever.

    can you help me to do a dvd with AC3 or DTS audio tracks only?
    blank,black or single picture in the background will be fine.
    ...i mean,how i load the audio without video? ! ?

    thanks sooo much!
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  11. Member
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    ok,reading the guide(help)inside the GUI i could do a fast and cool sample with a single issue:
    i used 9 AC3 5.1 tracks and in the begining of each one have one "click" before the music begin.

    trying to find what and where is wrong,i play the "FPA1#0X" files inside TempAudioMpg folder and they are running without clicks in mpclassic. the AC3 sources are playing clean too.

    what can be the reason of this clicks? thanks for any help.
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  12. Member
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    hi (again)
    reading the guide(help)inside the GUI i could do a fast and cool sample with a single issue:
    i used 9 AC3 5.1 tracks and in the begining of each one have one "click" before the music begin.
    we're inside https://forum.videohelp.com/ ... cool help forum

    is possible any help please?

    thanks so much!
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  13. easy... after you spend hundreds of dollars?

    it'd be EASIER to spend money on a high quality batch tool to start with: DVD Rebuilder PRo

    8)

    MeGUI to obtain the input free
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