DVD9 split to two DVD5's while retaining menus and video quality

[ashes2flames]

First off, incredible website and forums here.
Tons of information. I've been reading a lot, but honestly a little overwhelmed/confused/stupid so please forgive me for this newbie post, I know the topic has been covered several times.

The original DVD9 consists of 4 episodes of a tv documentary. The menus allow you to "play all" or play a specific episode. If you choose an episode there is another menu where you can pull up a screen with text information summarizing that episodes content or you can skip to chapters within the episode.

I have all the ifo, bup and vob files, but the vob files aren't separate for each episode. The episodes overlap from one vob file into another. Sometimes an episode will end halfway into a vob and another will start, to be continued on the next vob, etc.

I'm trying to create 2 DVD5's (2 episodes each), retain all the menu functionality and keep the original video quality (there is a lot of old archival footage in it that isn't great quality to begin with).
Can I re-author this using the vobs, etc that I already have?

All this and I need free tools to do it too! lol Because I am broke, or I would just buy the DL disks!
Very grateful for any help. I was looking at VobBlanker and reading some guides and I think I'm in over my head.

[jman98]

Yes, you can do this, but I'm not sure I'd call it easy for a newbie. Here's one way. Go to http://www.doom9.net. They prevent direct linking so at the main page go to Guides -> DVD / miniDVD -> DVD backup guides -> DVD-9 > 2 DVD+-R and then pick either one. I do the IFOEdit one, but DVDFab might be easier. However, the free DVDFab may not do this for you. IFOEdit is free but you have to do it all yourself.

[manono]

VobBlanker is the way to go these days:

http://download.videohelp.com/jsoto/guides/VobBlanker/splitdvd9/index.php

If you've seen this guide before and consider it too hard, then either work through it slowly and patiently or give up on this project. The IFOEdit method is exponentially more difficult.

[ashes2flames]

I don't know what my mental block was with VobBlanker, but I'm so glad I deleted it and gave IFOEdit a try. Easy, fast and did exactly what I wanted.

I guess my brain just works differently.
For me, IFOEdit was exponentially easier.

Thanks for the help jman98 and manono.

[fritzi93]

Wow, I'm with manono on this. You really found the IfoEdit method easier? :P

[manono]

Strange eh, fritzi93? Different people's brains are wired differently, I guess, as ashes2flames says. The VobBlanker guide covers all the fine points and makes it look harder than it really is.

Basically you just open the DVD, go into the cells and blank out the second half of them and process. That gives you the first half of the movie. You repeat, this time blanking out the first half of all the cells and process. Then you have the second half of the movie. That would be enough, and is about all that you did using IFOEdit (unless you did the 'skip-menu-and-play-second-half part).

But the menu buttons for the missing cells (chapters) of each half are still functioning. So the guide also walks you through disabling the non-functioning buttons, and also having it skip over the blank cells when starting (part 2) the movie, or finishing (part1) the movie. Without doing that there might be a several second delay when playing the movie, at the beginning or end, depending on which DVD it is.

Glad you got it sorted out, ashes2flames.

[djmasturbeat]

pretty old thread, but i hope maybe someone can help me here with using the VobBlanker guide linked to above, except for an episodic DVD. i hope anyone knowledgeable enough with pgcedit can tell me, (using the VobBlanker method, with the pgcedit clean up), what do i need to select in the command editor in pgcedit if i am doing a series/episodic disc with the episodes being on different VTS? I blank out full vts's in vobblanker (well each episode was 1 VTS, with only 1 PGC, which i blanked the whole PGC), Now i want to clean up the second disc using something like the link command in command editor (the clean-up step mentioned in the guide, which uses pgcedit), but the guide is written for a movie that is separated by blanking cells and re-linking to a later cell in the same Titleset. Specifically it:

This command links to a PTT (Part Of Title) of the current VTS (the VTS having the PGC issuing this command)

this isn't useful when i want to jump to a later VTS. can someone tell me how to do this, if what i want to do is possible, and if so, how? I don't understand most of these command editor functions, but i would like for the second discs to work like in guide (jump immediately to where the second disc actually starts) As is my second discs play, but they do take a good while to play through blanked episodes, and i would like to remove much of that wait time of scanning the blanked episodes. I don't specifically have to do this in pgcedit, if there is another method using free tools, just whatever works thanks in advance.