Series DVD - episodes

[lempicka78]

I've finally come up with a way to extract and burn 2 non-working episodes from a Star Trek Voyager I have. I've had it for awhile, finally watched it .. and in the end, the episode had a few glitches. It plays fine on the PC though so I thought why not try it out with my new DVD burner.

It's burning right now, but if it works it'll be my 2nd DVD - 1 turned out to be a coaster because I skipped a few steps below with the ac3 to mp2.

What I was wondering was ... is there any way to cut down these steps? Is there another tool that'll cut through the encoding and re-encoding? Especially ... why does NeroVision Express need to transcode it before a burn?

The steps I've done are as the following. I might not know the exact terminology and I forgot certain of the earlier steps - i started this over a week ago but never got round to the final steps.

1. DVD-Decrypter: 5 - 10 minutes (?)
In IFO mode, extract the episodes you want. It will be in VOB format, each episode will be split up into 2 VOBs
Time taken: 5 - 10 minutes (?)

2. VOB Merge
Use it to join the 2 VOBs of one episode, to make a complete episode. Do the same for the 2nd episode.
Time taken: 5 - 10 minutes (?)

3. ?
Convert the VOBs into MPGs .. I'm not sure how I did this but I think I just renamed the VOBs to MPGs. It was awhile ago .. but I'll recheck once the PCs finished.

4. TMPGEnc
Extract the video and audio tracks from the mpg.

5. BeSweet
The audio was in AC-3. Use BeSweet to convert the AC3 to mp2.
Time taken: 5 minutes (?)

6. TMPGEnc
Create a DVD MPG using the video track extracted from #4 and the audio track in #5. Each episode was set to fit in 46 - 47% of a 4.7GB DVD.
Time taken: 2 hours + each

7. Nero
NeroVision Express will launch and will transcode it before burning.
Time taken: 2 hours each to transcode, 20 min (?) to burn.

The DVD created will not have chapters, like from the original disc .. but it will be one full episode. In my case, it's fine because I just want to watch the darned episode on the TV!

So if anyone has a much quicker solution, please do suggest it. TMPG DVD Author .. maybe?

Thank youo.

[wulf109]

DVD Shrink,DVD2ONE

[Matt D]

How about:

1) This not a commercial disc right? Just copy the files over with windows explorer instead of decrypter.

2) Open needed tracks in TMPGEnc DVD Author by selecting "add DVD video" and browsing to your folder.

3) Tell Author to use MP2 audio instead of PCM

4) Create menu if needed and output to a new folder ready to burn.

Time taken maybe 30-40min if you're slow.

[nathanaa]

I use DVDDecrypter and rip the whole disc to the HDD (the file would probably be named on your hard drive as "STAR_TREK_VOYAGER".

I then point DVDShrink at the DVDDecrypter output file "STAR_TREK_VOYAGER" on the HDD, and after DVDShrink loads the disc info, I use Reauthor mode to extract the episode(s) I want, again to the HDD, and at "No Compression" (so I don't lose any quality - I usually make a file beforehand and name it appropriately, so something like "ST VOYAGER E11" and "ST VOYAGER E12").

Once the episodes are ripped into the second file, I can use either Nero and burn the episodes straightaway (if I don't want menus) or TMPGEnc DVDAuthor (if I do want menus). If I want menus I just load the individual episodes using the DVD Video button and reauthor it how I want. Then I burn with Nero. Voila. Sounds a lot simpler than your method, but I'm still new at this too, so maybe there are benefits to your method I'm not aware of.

[lempicka78]

Wow that's pretty easy! LOL! I've read the forums before and people were going on about how difficult ep disks were to do - encode, re-encode etc. so I thought that was the way to go. Thanks so much!

[lempicka78]

Btw for the ST: Voyager DVDs, not sure about other series .. the episodes are not split up into exact VOBs. Like VTS_01_1 on the disk will contain the full episode 1 plus half of episode 2. And so on .. with half & half of all other episodes.

Will this make a difference if I use the methods mentioned above? Can I just extract/burn the specific 2 episodes I want?

[Matt D]

TMPGEnc DVD Author doesn't care how the VOBs are split. It loads each episode completely with no hassle. If there are 3 episodes it will come up with Track 1, 2 and 3 and you just pick and choose what you want to load.

BTW making episode discs can be much tougher, but you are already working with completed VOBs, which in your case made this easy as pie.

No offense to Nathanaa, but the reason for the DVD Shrink step eludes me. You can go right to TMPGEnc Author without it.

[nathanaa]

The reason I use the DVDShrink step is so I can pull each individual episode out on it's own, and put it into it's own file. Using the Reauthor mode, I don't have to worry about split VOBs or anything.

Let's say there are 4 episodes on a disc, but I only want to backup 2 - or, in this case, 2 of the episodes won't play for some reason. I use Reauthor mode, select Title 2 and view it in the little window DVDShrink gives me ("yep, that's one of the episodes I need"), then rip it to a HDD file. I do the same for the other episode.

Then I can author the suckers no problem. See, I'm not savvy enough to be able to understand all those VOB and IFO files. I like nice, *named* files I can pint programs too, lol - not just stuff with numbers.

[Matt D]

Right, I understand that, but if you tell Author to open DVD video and browse to your Video_TS folder it will allow you to choose individual episodes without having to worry about how the vobs are split. It doesn't care, episode one will be track one, episode two track two, etc.
I guess it could be an issue if all the episodes are authored as one track, but otherwise it just takes more time to go through Shrink without any real benefit. JMO though, if your system works and produces the results you want, go for it I say.

[nathanaa]

Ah, but if I don't got through the DVDShrink step, I don't know which of the files are for which episode(s). I have no way of telling, that's the main point of using the extra step.

If there's a way to tell otherwise, I would be open to hearing about it. I'm all self taught here, and what I glean from reading the posts here. I've just gotten into this hobby in the last 3 or 4 months basically.

[jimmalenko]

When you add Video in TMPGEnc DVD Author and the "confirmation" screen comes up, change to the chapter edit cut tab. Here you can preview to find out which episode it is

[Matt D]

Right Jim, and if it has chapters you'll see those scroll by even before that.
The way I see it if you are loading the clips into some software to see which is which it might as well be the one you are using for authoring. To load 4 episodes into Author takes about 20 seconds and it's easy to then tell which is which and delete the ones you don't want in less than a minute.
To do this in Shrink will take some mintues to re-rip the episodes you want, it will eat up gigabytes of HD space, and at the end of the day you're still coming in to Author and opening them.

[nathanaa]

Hmmm, yeah, that's true. I do use the Chapter Edit tab when I put new chapters in (I hate 10 minutes chapters, I change everything to 3 minutes).

I am used to using that too, I did my old wedding VHS tapes, and cut out the garbage at the beginning and end of each tape.

But, I'll have to try the method you talk about. Maybe it'll be easier for me, and I can "lose" a step in my process. Thanks for the tip / food for thought.

[lempicka78]

Thanks for all the help .. I've managed to get it done using DVD Shrink (to extract only the episodes needed - copying the whole disc or using DVD Decrypter took too long) + TMPGEnc DVD Author. It all took about an hour total .. sheesh .. i feel like such a fool now

[jimmalenko]

<high-fives Matt D>

Two happy campers with the one suggestion

[ratedr]

I followed the dvd shrink instructions...but .what I need to know is one thing. when I follow those instructions it still creates two vobs for each episode (one is like 95% of the episode and the last one is like 1 minute of it)..is there anyway I can follow the instructions to get 1 vob = 1 episode? I have a portable video player that will play vb files and I want to load a bunch of episodes on it..but when I load it straight from th dvd, it gets confused...1 vob = 1 ep would work. Thanks in advance

[jimmalenko]

I *think* there is an option to tell DVDShrink not to split at 1024MB, but it may only work if your target is hard disk folders (which it would be in this case). One other way that readily springs to mind is to use DVDShink as per normal, then load its output into smartripper and set file-splitting to none. This will then create a VOB as big as it needs to be to include the entire episode in one file.