DVDShrink 3.1 Jump to Main Menu. Lesson Learned? Better Way?

[rkr1958]

I'm not sure if I'm passing along a lesson learned or if there's a better way. Anyway ...

I bought my son the Aladdin DVD and backed it up using DVDShrink 3.1. I kept the main menu & main movie at 100% (no compression) by stripping only but one audio track (in the main movie) and replacing all extras with a still images. The "problem" I had on startup was that it wanted to play approximately 5-minutes of still images. I assume in the original video this would be the into trailers prior to going to the main menu. I though it might be a good time to break out Ifoedit again. It's probably been a year or so since I've used it. Anyway here is what I did ...

1) Opened the VIDEO_TS.IFO in Ifoedit
2) In the top panel I selected VMGM_MAG => First Play POC
3) In the bottom panel (near the bottom) I then selected ==>
1. Pre Command ==> Then I right clicked on it and selected ==> edit
Command: (JumpSS_VMGM) Jump to Video Manager Menu
Menu Title_Menu
I then clicked ok
4) I hit save which then asked to overwrite both the VIDEO_TS.IFO and VIDEO_TS.BUP files. I hit ok.

The result, when I start the video it now goes directly to the main menu.


Is there a way I could have do this in DVDShrink? Is there a better way to do this? Is this a lesson learned or is this widely known?

Anyway ... I'd thought I just pass this along for what's worth.

[fscrocco]

I use VobBlanker sometimes. What I like about it is that when you blank a vob, it keeps the file, but makes it about 1 second, then bounces back to the menu. With DVD Shrink, it replaces the video with a still images, which saves alot of space, but the time remains that of the original file. Also, sometimes the size of the still images can still be significant.

[jeanl]

rkr1958,
You are lucky that the solution you describe worked. Many times, if you skip some parts of the DVD (by going straight to the main menu for example) you also miss some crucial gprm (registers) initializations which screw up the playback later on... Sometimes it just works (as in your case), sometimes it does not.
There are 2 other ways to do that:
- Use pgcedit to skip the playback of these extras. It does remove the vob files, simply skips the playback but preserves the commands that set the registers so playback isn't screwed up.
- Use vobblanker to remove (blank) the video material (and skip playback). You get the same results as with pgcedit, plus you free some space (from removing the material).
- Use titlesetblanker to blank out an entire titleset (which often times you can do, because previews are usually in their own, separate titleset). This will also reclaim space.

All in all, it's better to do that before shrink if compressing is required (because you'll have to compress a bit less than you would if you didn't get rid of the extra stuff)...

Jeanl

[rkr1958]

rkr1958,
You are lucky that the solution you describe worked. Many times, if you skip some parts of the DVD (by going straight to the main menu for example) you also miss some crucial gprm (registers) initializations which screw up the playback later on... Sometimes it just works (as in your case), sometimes it does not.
Jeanl

My "solution" or "lesson-learned" was derived from the doom9 guide on how to Split a DVD to 2 DVD-Rs using Ifoedit, "Step 3: Adjust the start point of the 2nd chapter (optional)". This optional step causes the movie to start playing from where if left off on from on disc 1 instead of going to the main menu.

Is what I described above in my initial post substantially different from what is descibed in the doom9 guide? Or phrased another way, is the risk you described greated in what I'm doing versus what's described for Step 3 of the doom9 guide?

Thanks.

[jeanl]

Or phrased another way, is the risk you described greated in what I'm doing versus what's described for Step 3 of the doom9 guide?

I'm not sure whether the risk is greater or not... It depends on the way the DVD was authored. If the DVD uses a lot of gprms for setup/navigation (and I've seen a lot that do that!), then jumping straight to the movie, or the menu is a risky thing to do (I have tried that on many DVDs with very poor results!!!). On the other hand, if it's a simple DVD with little use of gprms, the it might just work (as it did for you!).
For the doom9 case, I don't know if the solution given there would work in all cases, but I suspect it wouldn't.
But hey, it worked for you so it's all good!!!
Jeanl.