Is there a better method?

[quxote]

Ok here's the deal. I have some old home movies (Super 8) that were captured with a DV camera and converted to DVDS.

I do not have access to the original Super 8 movies or the DV tape. I do have the DVD discs that were made. When the person captured the Super 8 movies they used the good ole "play music in the background in a quiet room method" I want to add a different soundtrack the the DVD.

My current method is this.

1. Ripp the DVD to my HD using Magic DVD ripper. Output Profile AVi, Split Mode Infinite.
2. Load it into Virualdub and add an MP3 I created which is the same length of the movie ( I merged several MP3s together with audacity)
3. Save the new AVI with new soundtrack.
4. Burn using ConvertXtoDVD


The problems with this method are that it takes up ALOT of HD space between teh original that new avi, not to mention I assume I am losing some quality along the way.

I wanted to mention that I do not need a menu or other additions to the dvd. Basically I want to copy the exact video (without adding compression or losing quality) and add a soundtrack.

Are there any better methods to do this?

[johns0]

Use a program such as tmpgenc dvd author and load the dvd folder and replace the audio with what you want.

[aedipuss]

i'd skip the re-encoding steps. use a dvd authoring program. import the first vob and let it join and demux the entire video. delete the original audio. import the new. author new dvd using old video and new audio. no re-encoding is done at all. i use mediachance dvd-lab pro but others should work about the same.

[MOVIEGEEK]

You are over-processing the video, just drag the VIDEO_TS folder to your PC and use TDA or VideoStudio to import the VOB's.
Either program will only render the audio and leave the video alone.

[solarfox]

Yes, there's a much better way. Here's how I would do it.

1. -- If these are non-commercial DVD discs, there should be no "rip" involved; just copy the VIDEO_TS folder to a temporary directory on your hard drive.

2. -- If each home movie is in a separate Video Title Set (i.e. you have a bunch of VTSxx.VOB files on the disc, and each one is a single movie), your job is simple; skip ahead to step 3. If they're all mooshed together into a single VTS, then use DVDShrink in reauthoring mode to "extract" all of the individual titles. You're not actually going to "shrink" anything, but when DVDShrink re-authors the disc it'll create separate VTSxx files for each movie title. When you're finished reauthoring, use the newly-created VIDEO_TS folder as the source for the next step.

3. -- Demultiplex the VTSxx.VOB files into elementary streams using... well, any of several programs, really. I use DVDLab, but you can also do this with programs like TMPGenc, Womble MPEG-VCR, or even IFOedit if you don't mind tangling with that incredibly user-hostile freebie.

4. -- Create your replacement audio files in your program of choice, making sure it's exactly the same length as the demultiplexed audio from each titleset.

5. -- Then, just remultiplex the extracted video with the new audio. This can either be part of the authoring step if you're using something like DVDLab, which prefers elementary streams to begin with, or you can remux using TMPGenc if your DVD authoring program of choice prefers to use already-muxed sources.