Replicating a menu

[pradhan_aditya]

I had borrowed a VCD[2 CD set] from my friend and on my VCD player it shows the menu with selections and all. I found out that the 'Segment' folder contains files named Item001.dat and so on, 20 files in all. I copied all these files and also the Avseq01.dat file from the 'Mpegav' folder to my HD.
I've Vcdgear and Nero 5.5.4, I've converted the Avseq01.dat into an std. mpeg file but how do I replicate the menu?
When I opened those 20 .dat files, I realized that those were the menu files, how do I proceed from here?
Also, in the 2nd disc there are 3 files namely Avseq01,02 and 03.dat and 18 .dat files in the 'Segment' folder which I believe are for the menu. The Avseq02 and 03.dat are movie trailers which can be accessed from the menu.
How do I replicate all this in my new VCD? In the original VCD there are menus within menus and in the main menu there are various options with numbers, you press the number 1 key on the remote and the movie plays, you press the number 2 key and you get only songs menu and so on.

Thanks in advance
Aditya

[adam]

To manually replicate this you would have to convert all those dat files to mpg using something like vcdgear. You'd then have to completely reauthor everything using authoring software such as VCDEasy.

But you are making this way too complicated. A VCD is simply a collection of files burnt to a disk using a certain structure. If you want an exact copy of this VCD, all you have to do is copy those files to a new disk. Just use the cd to cd copy option in any burning software and it will make an exact duplicate of the disk complete with all the menu's.

[pradhan_aditya]

Thanks for replying
I converted those dat files into mpeg but where should I send them, if I drag them with the Avseq01.mpg Nero gives me a error that the files are non-compliant, saying 'no video'

I could try CD-CD copying but isn't that risky, what should be the speed settings?
My CDROM can read at 32x and the writer can burn at 4x
When I tried to copy the Cdi folder from the original VCD to my HD it gae me a read error, 'couldn't read from the source', I fear that this may arise during the CD-CD copy

[Double]

CD to CD copy is definitely the way to go, just burn as slow as you can for better results.

-D

[adam]

There is nothing risky about a cd to cd copy. Tell your program to make a disk image before buring. It copies all the files to your harddrive as a disk image first. If the disk is damaged or otherwise unreadable, the process will fail before it even tries to write anything to the disk.

[pradhan_aditya]

Thank u all for replying
In Nero there is an option to save as an image file, I'll try that and there is also an option to simulate the process, the lowest speed possible is 1x, maybe I'll go with that.
I'll keep u posted.

Thanks again
Adi

[pradhan_aditya]

Thanks to u all, I went with the CD-CD copy and it was a complete success

I love this forum