Removing Menus from DVD without Reauthoring?

[ufcdanny]

Hello everyone!

I have a concert DVD that is about 4.90GB in all. I don't have any DVD9s right now, so I tried to run it through DVD Shrink. But I realized that the menu takes up over 200mb. The compression ratio is at about 86% with the menus intact, but if I remove the menu, the ratio will surely increase. But, I don't want to reauthor because I'll lose even more quality. Is there any way to remove that menu without having to reauthor? If anyone can help me out, I would really appreciate it!

Thanks in advance everyone!

[guns1inger]

You can re-author in Shrink without re-encoding, so the process is lossless. Just set the compression level to No Compression. If it is still too large (and it probably will be) then you can use DVD Rebuilder to do a higher quality re-encoding to make it fit.

Otherwise you can look at more complex solutions using VOBBlanker and PGCEdit.

[manono]

Rather than removing the menus, why not just just still them, with or without the audio? That will bring their sizes down to next to nothing and still retain their functionality. Use either MenuShrink or VobBlanker for the job. In addition, there may be other stuff on the DVD you can live without (logos, warnings, some extras), and VobBlanker can help there as well, before running what's left through DVD Shrink or (better) DVD-Rebuilder.

Guides for MenuShrink:

http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=58596&highlight=
http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/shrink_dvd_menus_with_menushrink.cfm

VobBlanker:

http://download.videohelp.com/jsoto/guides/VobBlanker/motion2still/index.php
http://download.videohelp.com/jsoto/guides/VobBlanker/blanking/index.php
http://www.dvdr-digest.com/articles/article_vobblanker_page1.html

[tomlee59]

Hello everyone!

I have a concert DVD that is about 4.90GB in all. I don't have any DVD9s right now, so I tried to run it through DVD Shrink. But I realized that the menu takes up over 200mb. The compression ratio is at about 86% with the menus intact, but if I remove the menu, the ratio will surely increase. But, I don't want to reauthor because I'll lose even more quality. Is there any way to remove that menu without having to reauthor? If anyone can help me out, I would really appreciate it!

First, authoring is simply the act of placing all of the elements in a DVD-compliant structure. It does not involve reencoding. If you change any of the elements, you will be reauthoring, by definition. So you are actually asking to reauthor the disc without having to apply much compression.

DVDshrink allows you to selectively delete unwanted elements. Since you don't seem to care about the menus, by all means feel free to nuke them, under the Reauthor tab. While you're at it, nuke any other elements you might not care about (e.g., trailers, other language tracks, etc.), if present. Then DVDshrink will select whatever compression factor is needed to fit the remaining elements onto a DVD5 blank.