Can I recover unreferenced material?

[antoniost]

I own the dvd Seven Samurai, and my version of the DVD has the been edited not to include a certain special feature about the restoration process (http://www.toldyouso.net/search/details.cfm?tblDVDReview.RMovieName=Seven%20Samurai%2C%20Criterion). When trying to back it up in DVDShrink, I noticed it does in fact contain the special feature that was ordered to be removed do to licensing issues (see link above).

So my question is, how can I reference the unreferenced material and make it a title on the dvd, so I can view it on my standalone player?

[fritzi93]

Unreferenced material. Isn't "easter egg" another term for that? Like the spoof on disc one of FOTR. There's bound to be somebody out there that has an elegant method. It'd be interesting.

[antoniost]

Unreferenced material. Isn't "easter egg" another term for that? Like the spoof on disc one of FOTR. There's bound to be somebody out there that has an elegant method. It'd be interesting.

I just check my own copy, the FOTR EE easter egg is actually referenced, it's title 3 on disc 1. The easter egg on TTT EE, is also title 3 and referenced. Unreferenced material doesn't have a title, and is not accounted for in the IFOs.

Update: I just did some detective work, I found that the "unreferenced material" in question is VTS_02_1.VOB on my dvd, and nothing on the IFOs point to this clip.

My question is how can I edit the ifo, or use some authoring tool to incorporate this clip?

[fritzi93]

Okay, I have a way to do it. Go to Guides>IFOEdit. Look at Baldrick's guide "How to author & burn a DVD from VOB trailers/files". Follow it exactly. I just tried it on the "Easter egg" in FOTR, using just the VOB file. You can create all necessary files including the IFO to make it playable on a standalone. (Just finished verifying that it worked on an RW). If you can find the VOB, you can do it.

I don't know any way yet to integrate it back onto a DVD with the main movie and make it playable. Not with original menu as well as the main movie. You could, however, make up a compilation "easter egg" DVD with each VOB as a chapter point. It'd be inefficient to have only 5 minutes or so on a DVD.

Of course, you could just demux to elementary streams and author the whole thing over with what you want. I see no other way to link the file to a menu. With the authoring program i use, it would mean manually setting each chapter point. I have no experience with other authoring programs.

Still hoping someone can enlighten me on a better way?

EDIT: I'll have a look at ChapterXtrator when I get the chance.

[antoniost]

Thanks for your help fritzi93. I checked out Baldrick's guide, but I want to incorporate it into my backup dvd. I am getting better at ifoedit, and I'm looking for a way I can add a title to an already existing ifo, so that I could at least select the title number on my standalone to play it.

EDIT: I figured it out. I created IFOs for just the clip via ifoedit's "create IFOs" tool. Then I renamed the IFOs to correspond to the clip, I inserted the clip and it's IFOs back into the backup folder, and ran get vts sectors to correct any errors, and voila, it's now title 2 on my backup. Now if I want to go the extra distance, I will have to figure out how to edit the menu so that I can create a link to it.

[fritzi93]

Good job, you beat me to it. 8) As to modifying the existing menu, etc., man, are you ambitious! I don't suppose there's any chance Menu Modder could do it? Haven't used that one yet.

[fritzi93]

Okay, you don't specify your steps, but I presume after running the VOB through IFOEdit, you just used the reauthor function in DVDShrink to compile? I gave that a go, no problem, works fine. Seems to me fooling with the menu is gunna be more trouble than it's worth. But some people really want to keep menus.

[antoniost]

Actually I used clonedvd2: sneak preview, and I split the movie in two discs to have it orginal compression ratio. Then, I put in the new clip and it's IFO into the second disc's VIDEO_TS folder (because there wasnt room in the first disc), and then I ran get vts sectors. It seemed to work well. Yeah, I think I'm gonna forget about editing the menu, it does seem like a lot of work, for a special feature I'll probably only watch once. Thanks for your imput fritzi.