Backing up DVD 16:9 question

[danielmak]

My question is one that is more about confirmation to avoid ending up with a variety of DVD coasters. I have a DVD that I want to back up. I used MTR to extract the Main Feature since I know I'm going to have to compress the file (the original is 7.68 GB and I need to get it onto a 4.7GB DVD-R) and I don't need all of the extras on the DVD. Here's where I run into a problem. The DVD is 16:9 but I have a standard TV (4:3). The original DVD is obviously encoded to make adjustments to fit to screen (I get a letterbox on my TV when I play the original). When I go through the compression choices with Toast and burn the DVD and then play the DVD, I have a squished image. I know from past experiences on this board that choosing custom settings in Toast can help avoid re-encoding, but the problem here is that I need the file to be compressed (and hence some re-encoding is necessary, no?).

So, it seems to me that my only option is to go through this process: extract with MTR, compress and burn with Toast, re-extract with MTR, use MyDVDEdit to fix the VOB so it is 16:9panscanletterbox instead of 16:9, and re-burn with custom settings in Toast. Is this correct or is there a better way? Thanks.

[Frobozz]

It shouldn't be that hard.

First, do a full disc extraction with MTR. Then select the ripped VIDEO_TS with the DVD from VIDEO_TS setting in Toast 7. Next, click the Options button to see Toast's compression options. This is where you choose Main movie only.

If the original VIDEO_TS has the 16x9 plus letterbox plus pan & scan IFO setting for that title then Toast will retain that for the DVD it compresses.

Toast does not re-encode the DVD. Compression involves "requantizing" the existing MPEG compression.

It is important that the VIDEO_TS folder selected with Toast has everything that was present in the original. Toast reads the IFO and gets confused when something is missing that should be there. That's why a full-disk extraction is necessary.

[danielmak]

Frobozz,

Thanks for the Christmas Eve help. I'll hope you or someone else is Santa and can help a little further. When I go through those steps, which is what I did the first time before I posted, the Main movie option explicitly identifies itself as 16:9. It says: Video: Main Movie only (3:00:25, 16:9 NTSC). Audio: All (Dolby 2.0). Quality is rated as Good.

If I switch Audio to Pimary Only(Dolby 2.0), the quality jumpst to Very Good.

So this is what I did last night but for whatever reason the the burn was striclty 16:9 rather than panscan/letterbox to make adjustments for my 4:3 screen by altering the image so it's not squished and putting the image in a letterbox (as is the case with the original DVD). So somewhere in there it is failing to read the BUP or IFO files (whichever would create the if/then scenarios for different screen sizes).

So I tried to re-burn this morning with Video All (1 Movie and 7 Extras, 3:07:28)--note that there is no explicit reference to 16:9. Toast says that the quality is Good. When I do this the image is not squished and the letterbox is gone but it looks horrible. There is a very big difference between the image quality of this burn and image quality of the Main Movie only burn (which is squished but looks good otherwise).

When I open the VIDEO_TS folder from the full disc extraction with MyDVDEdit, the only thing that appears are the images that run on the menus and the extras (which are just quick production company images/credits). I can't see the main features anywhere. I add this bit of information because it might help someone give me some advice (or not).

One final note, this is a 2005 DVD and it's for a sporting event, so it's not a Disney film or made by some other company that seems to be working hard to prevent us from backing up our own DVDs. Thanks in advance for any further help. Take care.

[Frobozz]

So I must be mistaken. If the movie-only DVD that Toast compressed is 16:9 only (did you check that in MyDVDEdit?) then I amend my advice.

Set up everything as before in Toast, except choose Save as Disc Image instead of clicking the burn button. Mount the disc image file and copy its VIDEO_TS to the hard drive. Choose Get Info on the copied VIDEO_TS and change the permissions for the entire folder contents to Read & Write. Then use myDVDEdit to change the aspect ratio to include every option.

Then use the DVD video from VIDEO_TS setting in Toast to burn this to DVD.