Three DVD's to One?

[Ice5]

I have three DVD's (Pilates DVD's) that I'd like to combine.

The three DVD's together will total a little more than one DVD, but I can compress it later. My girlfriend would prefer to have all of the DVD's together so there's no changing of DVD's and stuff.

Anyway, I'd like to keep all the menus and stuff if that's possible. Is it possible to do this an an easy way?

I was thinking of creating like, an episodic disc where each episode, is actually another DVD?

I've read the "DVD to DVDs" guides, but they only keep the video parts, without menus, etc.

Any help would be appreciated.

[nightscape]

dvd srink will make a back up of a dvd with menus and extras. only bad thing is it will compress the dvd-9 to fit it all of it on the dvd-5. by removing the menus and all the extras, you leave more room for the movie and in most cases you dont even have to compress.

by not having to compress the dvd, you end up with better picture quality.
there are guides on dvd srink on this site. the short of it is to back up a dvd with menus follow this

dvdsrink/ open disk (show it the file/dvd) / backup ,,,,after it finishes the backup select your burning program and burn it.

i dont know if you are going to have enough room in the dvd-5 to put 3 dvd movies into. i found some dvd-9's online but the price was extreme, around 3g for 120 disk.

dvdsrink will backup your dvd's and burn them with your burning program like nero. you can re-author your dvd's with srink but i dont know if you can combine mutiple dvd's with it. i guess if you manually srink your dvd's to about 33% you could put them all on one dvd-5. however you probably wont be able to watch them because that much compression would make it un watchable.

a lo tech way to watch three dvd's with out getting up to change the dvd, would be getting a 3 disk dvd changer.

good luck,

nightscape

[crashnburn]

you can use something like TMPENG Author to create simple menu like I did with some of kids movies. I combined 3 short Barney shows into 1 dvd with menus.

[Ice5]

Thanks for the reply.

The total size of all three DVD's is around 5 GB, two of the DVD's only have 20 minutes of video with some menus.

I've ripped / burned dozens of DVD's using Shrink and other methods. The issue here is not that I want to back up the DVD's, but that I want to make a compilation.

I think it's silly to burn a DVD with 20 minutes of video on it, so I'd like to put all three on one.

Also it's very low motion, and picture quality isn't that important (it's an exercise DVD).

[mats.hogberg]

If you can settle for no menus, it's easy in DVD Shrink. Rip 2 DVDs to disc, leave 3rd in DVD reader. Start DVDShrink and reauthor. Open the first (ripped) DVD, drag the main title over to the reauthor window. Repeat for ripped #2 and the DVD in your reader.
With some authoring app, you should be able to create some menus for the 3 titles (or else you can select them with the remote).

/Mats

[Ice5]

OK...

I know how to author a dvd with three video segments on it.

What I'm trying to do is keep the menus. Is this impossible?

[smearbrick1]

I don't believe what your asking is impossible, but people seem to dance around this subject whenever the question is asked. They always offer: "you can create a dvd compilation in TMPGENC dvd author and make your own custom menu", or "just use dvdshrink in reauthor mode. There's no menus but oh well".

I too am searching for this information. When I really think about it, it is sort of hard to conceive. You would actually have to break down each dvd individually and reassign each titleset in each disc. Plus, you would have to create a main menu to link to these sub menus (your original disc menus) that would, in turn, link to each individual movie. I don't think this is possible without some serious reauthoring and some serious time.

Someone will probably post after me and state that I could just use dvd shrink or something like that. We both know that's not the answer we're looking for, don't we?

[ddlooping]

"What I'm trying to do is keep the menus. Is this impossible?"

As far as I know, there is no way to keep 3 functionning original menus when making a compilation, whether you use DVD Shrink or any other authoring software.

The only solution is for you to create a new menu.

[FT Shark]

To keep is simple, NO you can't keep the same menus that the 3 disks have and use them. If you want a menu that can play all three clips you will have to create your own. A DVD can only have one menu. A menu with multiple pages is common. But there is no way to have three separate menus on a DVD.

[Gazorgan]

No, you can't keep the 3 original menues. There isn't anything currently out there that can do this simply or via a GUI.

It could be done in IFO edit, but you would go insane doing it. Basically you would have to change every single VOB reference in videos #2 and #3. Then you'd have to have a Master menu for the 3 original menues. Hope you have a good HEX editor program.....

TMPG Author and simple menues. Come on, it's an excercise video?

[dafreak]

agree with gargozan.

reauthor with dvd shrink to create three separate movie-only files.
then add each clip to tmpgenc dvd author and create simple menus.