Keep/Edit Original Menu?

[apeman]

I've read several methods to keep the original menu with the main movie. I've gotten this to work, however, the original scenes are out of sinc. Any know-how / guide on editing the original menu for scenes? Does that german DVD2DVD-R program work well doing this? I can't read German and can't find English directions to this program. If you have them (english) please post a link just so I can try it out or let me know if it's BS or not.

Thanks!

[spooki]

The DVD2DVDR program works well on movies that have a single PGC. it really simplifies the process although you do need to have CCE and Scenarist.

I've now used it to do 8 movies and they all work fine with original menus,extras etc.

For some reason they removed the english manual from the site but i already had it and put it here

http://www.sttng.demon.co.uk/DVD2DVDR_Manual_english.zip

Hope this helps

[apeman]

spooki!

Thank you very much for the link!!

I am trying out the method right now. I'll let you know how I did.

[spooki]

When i get a bit of free time i was going to change the guide a bit as i don't think it's got every step including using ifoupdate to merge the files back into the original vob set. Also the english is written like a Taiwan motherboard manual

[apeman]

I'm still decoding right now....working on Blade II. I agree about the manual reading like a Jackie Chan movie, i thought I just had too much to drink last night when I started reading it!

You mean there are steps missing? This thing is still encoding after 14 hours (and I thought my computer was still fast DOH! - PIII 600 mhz). I would hate to get to the end and find out I missed a check box? Please let me know when you update this thing or if it's just a step or two and you could post it that would be great.

Another question is...do your scene indexes in the menu point correctly to the sections of the movie even after it has been encoded and burned? If so that is awesome! This program would be the Holy Grail.

[spooki]

I used it for blade 2 and it worked great, keeps all the original chapter points (and they point to the right place) , directors commentary etc.

My P4 2.0Ghz took around five hours to do a 2 pass VBR on blade 2

One thing the manual doesn't really go into is the space reserved for extras box, you need to find the total disc size minus the main movie vobs and enter this, that way it will re-encode the video to the correct size to be able to fit back on the DVD. i normally add about 50-100mb just to be safe.

Also after you have loaded the Scenarist script and wrote the project i rip all of the non main movie vob, ifo files etc from the original DVD to my hard drive then rename the ones created by Scenarist to the same as the original movie, i.e. VTS01_1.vob changed to VTS04_1.vob if this is what the original movie was.

Next step is to move just the Scenarist created .vob files into the directory that you just ripped from the DVD and then use ifoupdate on them as this updates all the .ifo files with then new movie size etc, there is no need to do the ifoedit bit that it states in the guide as ifoupdate does this

Then burn and enjoy.

I'm currently using it to do "We were soldiers" and updating the guide as i go along. one thing i've noticed is you can use it to resize the extras on the disc with the same process.

[ddawson24]

I am having problems finding a giude to use the ifoupdate program. Everywhere that I read just says to copy the new vobs in place of the old ones and use that program. Is there any settings that need to be done? Also what do you do with the BAK file?

[apeman]

WHOA! I am having some major issues with Scenarist. I get about 30% of the way through "creating dvd video" in the giude and scenarist just quits on me. no error, nothing. It just stops and disappears! What the $%#$&#^ Ahhhhhhhhhh!

Now I'm getting frustrated. Can you substitute anothe authoring program in for scenarist?

[spooki]

I am having problems finding a giude to use the ifoupdate program. Everywhere that I read just says to copy the new vobs in place of the old ones and use that program. Is there any settings that need to be done? Also what do you do with the BAK file?

With ifoupdate all you need to do is select the original .ifo file that you ripped from the DVD then select the authored .ifo file that was creatd by Scenarist and then click update and answer yes to getting VTS sectors.

the .bak file is just a backup of the original .ifo so you can ignore it.

[spooki]

Apeman, which version of Scenarist are you using ?.

You can use DVD Maestro but it requires a little more work to get the chapter points, you need to use chapterxtracter on the original .vob files and save it in DVD maestro format.

All you do is import the video and audio files in the correct order, import the chapter information and then compile. The output is then the same as Scenarist would have created.

[apeman]

I'm using Scenarist 2.6. I should have prefaced all of this by ssaying that I am not completly versed in all 5000 DVD programs that are out there , but I'm working on it.

Now I am getting the same problem where it multiplexes to about 30% then gives me a series of errors saying that it can't multiplex the file and can't create the DVD vob's. The wierd thing is , there is a 3gig vob file in there that runs sometimes? I think this is a problem with the scenarist.exe file. i was getting an application error before that said that "the memory could not be "written" or referenced. Hell, you got me?!

I'm not familiar with Maestro yet. i guess I will have to try and learn a new methed again. However I did tried to import the .scp file and Maestro told me to hit the road because it was created by scenarist.

I'm on a mission now! I will figure this out if it kills me!

Thanks for the continued advise spooki !!

[spooki]

Quick guide to Maestro


To import it all into Maestro you just right click on the box in the bottom right corner and select import media asset, choose the movie and all audio tracks.

once thay are imported you need to double click Movie1 on the left hand side which will open up a box with time settings etc. Drag your movie file onto the first row that has a film frame and the number 1 next to it. next drag your first audio track onto the row underneath that starts "en 1" second audio onto "en 2" etc.

Then you need to import a chapter list created by chapterxtractor, to do this right click the time bar where it says chapter 1 and select import chapter list, the only other thing to do is click down the bottom of the window where it says 4:3 and change it to the aspect ratio you require.

Then click the barcode icon at the top to compile the project, you will then have the same output as Scenarist would have created.

Hope this helps

[apeman]

I guess I'm just jinxed.
I am trying your Meastro method but when i try to import the chapter list from chapterxtractor i get the error....

Erro Message
I-Frame Insertion entry frame is not consistant with current tape frame rate! I-Frame Import will be canceled. (0xc102008b)

.....I also noticed that the original length of the movie (BladeII) was 1:56 and my new length after running DVD2DVD-R and CCE2.5 is 1:32?? is that why I am having this problem?

I also realized that the version of CCE I'm using puts the damn CCE Logo on every frame of the movie. POUR SOME MORE SALT IN MY WOUNDS WORLD!!!@#$@$#$@

I wish Scenarist would work for me, then most of this would be solved...Damn

[spooki]

Are you using NTFS or Fat32 ?

If your using Fat32 any files over 4gb will be truncated so that you lose some of the movie, could also be why scenarist is complaining and crashing.

[apeman]

I'm using Win2K on NTFS.

I did some reading and it says on the instalation notes that I may need an MPEG II Hardware encoder. It has said that before when it crashes as well. The other thing might be that I have a 9 gig SCSI II C: drive where scenarsit is installed and a standar 100 Gig drive where I hold my files at. Maybe the scsi card or drive is causing problems. I will see if moving the program to the other drive may help. I have an MPEG II capture card I can borow today to se if that helps too. I'll have a Doctorate in Authoring and A+ by the time I'm finished with this!

[apeman]

Hey Spooki,

Any idea why the original length of the movie (BladeII) was 1:56 and my new length after running DVD2DVD-R and CCE2.5 is 1:32? i

I managed to make it all the way through the process of compiling in maestro and runnning ifoupdate, but the movie is botched for some reason. I had to use the new chapter segments (i.e. 20 chapters instead of the original 25 chapters, becasue the original chapters pointed to the last 20 minutes of the original movie that was no longer there? Is the length diffrence why and hopw do you fix this?

Any thoughts would be great!

Thanks agian

[spooki]

Is the movie still complete but showing the wrong length ?. I've never had a problem with CCE making the movie appear shorter.

I used DVD2DVDR on Blade II Region 2 and it works great, the movie is the correct length and all chapters are in the right place etc.

I've just checked my re-encoded copy to be sure and its 01:52:02:00
I just told DVD2DVDR to reserve 300mb for extras and hit go and it came out great.

I've noticed that sometimes windows mediaplayer reports the wrong length when i play the movie straight after re-encoding but Maestro and Scenarist always show the correct length.

[spooki]

on your other point about Scenarist, you don't need a hardware decoder card as i don't have one and it works fine. possibly it's a bad install of Scenarist.

Have you done any other re-encodes with CCE or is this the first one ?.
you could always try CCE on it's own to re-encode the movie and see if it comes out at the correct length

[apeman]

All of those are great ideas. I wish the "testing" process didn't take days and days! Good thing I have DVD-RW's! Because I would be sitting on a pile of coasters right now. LOL!

I think I reserved too much space (700 megs) for the extras on Blade II and maybe that's why it compressed it. I'll rerun the process tonight and in the meantime I'm going to see if I can't get scenarist installed correctly. All I need is the Cinemaster 2000 driver. It's out there, just hard to find.

How did "We Were Soldiers" tun out?

[apeman]

Oh, and to answer your question....."Is the movie still complete but showing the wrong length ?. I've never had a problem with CCE making the movie appear shorter. "
YES! That's what's weird....the movie is complete but without the menu. I don't know what the hell I did. So I'm going to start from scratch again and see.

...I just opened up BladeII in the DVD2DVDR and it reported that it was 1:40:39;15. Which from reading above is now the same as what you had and not the same when I open it in a few other programs.