How do I create a continous MPEG2 file from a DVD with video from menus

[porchmonkey]

I am trying to create a continuous video file from a dvd which has menus which use video from one of the vob's. I want to divide up the menu video vob (VTS_02.0.VOB) into small pieces and insert them in front of other content vob's (VTS_02.1.VOB, VTS_03.1.VOB, ETC.) to create a continous video file which I can encode to divx or h.264.

The dvd will play throught the menu videos if you dont pick buttons in time (say 30 seconds), and the menu videos make a nice intro to the following segments. It's a music instructional video and each menu video has a sample of the music piece and title text.

If I use dvdshrink, tmpegexpress or TAW4, it picks the TITLES only, and skips the menu vob's. The existing order is random, ex. titles 1,3,6,10,16 followed by 11,9,12,4 (and the menu video is not in a title, only in vob 2.0).

The only thing I can think of doing is to cut up the menu video vob 2.0 into small pieces, and sort out the title vs. vob order, and peice them back together in videoredo.

It would be nice if I could automate the whole process and end up with one file for subseqeunt encoding.

I tried searching through the forum and web before posting this question, maybe I don't know how to phrase it correctly.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

[manono]

If you want menu functionality, you keep it as a DVD. There's no way to cut out pieces of a menu and then add them in front of a VOB and still keep a working menu. Just attaching a menu video, or part of a menu video to a VOB is easy.

First cut out the piece of the menu you want (I use MPEG2Cut). Then open it in DGIndex and add in the VOB(s) you want. Save the D2V Project File and use it in an AviSynth script for encoding however you like. There are other ways to accomplish the same thing, but I told you the best way.

If I use dvdshrink, tmpegexpress or TAW4, it picks the TITLES only, and skips the menu vob's.

There are reasons for that behavior. Again, you can't do what you're asking.

[porchmonkey]

Thanks manono. I'm going to try those tools, new to me. I really don't want menu functionality, just the video and titles.

I know there's a lot going on in dvd authoring with calls going every which direction, menu buttons, etc. It seems that if a standalone dvd player can play a dvd from beginning to end on it's own, then some kind of program could make note of what's going on and write a script for cutting & pasting, renumbering, etc., in the order that it would normally play.

But then again, I might not need to do this ever again.

Thanks again.

[guns1inger]

There is a big difference between playback, and editing and encoding. If a DVD has been authored using seamless branching then you can rip a branch in it's entirety with something like DVD Decrypter simply be choosing the right angle. However if it is a just a collection of titles that go from one to the next then it is not so simple, and has to be done manually.

Then you have menus, which are treated differently by the DVD specification, and are not considered titles. You can rip these as well, but it takes more work.

It also depends on how the menus have been constructed. A simple design would be a menu, followed by a short clip. If this is the case, you should be able to rip the short the clip as a title. However a more sophisticated approach would use cells, which means everything is part of a menu, and much harder to work with.

I would load the vobs in to VOB2MPG and see if you can isolate the short clisp as separate titles. If you can, you can have them extracted as separate mpg files, and edit or re-author to your heart's content.