In-place video stream replacement without re-authoring?

[cosmin]

Hi,

I would like to know if there is a program that allows me to replace a VOB video stream with one of my own, and update the IFOs/BUPs appropriately. The new video stream would have exactly the same number of frames as the old one.

I know that DVDShrink can reencode the video streams for me, but I'm thinking about using an external, high-quality MPEG encoder: I don't think that DVDShrink can be better than TMPGEnc, for example.

Furthermore, if possible, I would like to replace some of the 720x480 tracks with half-D1, 352x480 tracks. If I attempt a very heavy reduction in size, then lowering the video resolution to 352x480 should reduce the blockiness.

Best regards

[FOO]

Ifoedit will construct IFOs from scratch for a set of VOBs.
It will also adjust things in an existing IFO if you are
careful.

[cosmin]

But if the IFOs are built from scratch, doesn't it essentially mean "reauthoring"? I don't want to lose anything from the existing IFOs, because they hold essential information about how the menus interact.

I want to have the IFOs properly updated when I replace an existing VOB with one of my own, but I don't want them rebuilt from scratch.

Thanks for the tip about IfoEdit.

[FOO]

You want to substitute a VOB for another one..
May not be easy. The new one will probably have to have the
same VOB unit and VOD ID numbers.
You can do that with VOBedit.
Then you have to worry about matching chapters.

It should be interesting.

[cosmin]

I see. Thanks!

[DoubleShadowIce]

@cosmin

Depending on how your Titleset is laid out, you may want to check these guides from 2COOL. He explains how he replaced original Titles PGCs with blank ones. In your case, instead of using blanks, use your new VOB. No reauthoring or reencoding done. All done with freeware. 8)

• How To Blank Out a Single PGC TitleSet
• How To Completely Blank Out a Multi-PGC TitleSet
• How To Partially Blank Out a Multi-PGC TitleSet

[cosmin]

Thanks, DoubleShadowIce, for the links.

I certainly have to document myself prior to reading and understanding those articles, but at a first glance they seem indeed to answer my question

[Vejita-sama]

IFOEdit allows you to replace the m2v file (and just the m2v file). HOWEVER, it does NOT allow m2v files generated by TMPGenc or CCE to do this:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=7569b04186332d678909936dda4c80a2&threadid=27441

Re-authoring and then using IFOUpdate is doable thou. If there's only 1 PGC in the VTS it's no big deal. But it there are multiple PGC re-authroing can turn into a pain. Plus DVD Maestro and scenarist (I suppose encore but don't actually know) are the only programs that I know of that can author multiple PGC.

[cosmin]

Thanks for all the info, guys.
I'll delve into this and see what works for me

[SaSi]

There is another approach to this issue.

If I am correct, DVD2DVDR is a program that tries to decode a DVD directory (all the titlesets, menus, etc) and generate a Scenarist Script as well as demux the elements (video and audio streams, menus, etc) so that you can use Scenarist to re-author the DVD.

The process involves re-encoding the Video streams so that they take up less space.

[cosmin]

SaSi, your solution sounds appealing... it's just that... I don't have Scenarist, nor the money to invest into buying it

But thanks for the tip.