joining dvd's

[davemcg37]

can anyonr tell me a way to join three dvd's together and then shrink the final product to fit onto one dvdr. i want to make a one dvd back up of the lord of the rings trilogy ideally editing each film so that it moves seamlessly (without the beginning or end credits) from one film to the next. i dont mind if i have to reconvert to say mpg to do this. ive looked to the guides but cant find anything that'll help me. btw ive tried to do it using tmpgenc and joining 3 mpgs together but there seems to be a problem with the finished file size being recognised bw either windows, tmpg or both. thanx

[Tommyknocker]

Try DVD Shrink's Re-Author mode.

[davemcg37]

tried that with all three video_ts folders but shrink wouldnt compress it enough and wouldnt even let me specify a custom compression.

[davemcg37]

anyone?

[dphirschler]

1. Free up LOTS of harddrive space.

2. Rip the DVDs in File mode. (DVD Decrypter)

3. Convert vobs to DV (DVD2AVI)

4. Make script in AVIsynth that does the following:

- loads all three movies.
- trims the unnecessary stuff (hint: 'trim' function)
- joins them
- consider reducing the resolution to 352x480 for better compression

5. Load script in Virtual Dub and save the audio.

6. Using the VD saved audio as a guide, use Cool Edit Pro's multitrack mixer and the original wavs from step 3 to make a nice seamless audio file.*

7. Modify AVIsynth script to add in the new audio.

8. Frameserve to TMPGenc (or your favorite encoder) and encode.

9. Now you gotta author it. I'll let you figure out how to make the chapter stops and menus.

Given what I put in this post, you should have no trouble finding guides to help you along. Sounds like a fun project. Good luck.


Darryl

* There may not be any guides for this step, so feel free to ask for help.

[dbaker6165]

Try DVD2ONE but I usually just compress TWO dvd's on one dvd-r because 3 dvd's on one is just asking for shite-e video quality.... lets not go back to the days of vcd please....

[MackemX]

I hate changing discs but once every 3 hours or so ain't that bad as I would need to go to the toilet sometime anyway

the quality of having 9 hours (or whatever) on one disc would suffer but maybe a dual layer would give an acceptable level of quality for some

[ZippyP.]

To get 9 hours on a disk of any reasonable quality you will need to re-encode, like dphirschler suggested. Set the audio bitrate to 128 kbps, either mp2 or AC3. For video use 352x240 resolution (352x288 for PAL) and a bitrate of 980 kbps. Expect quality a little below VHS. For better quality use 2-pass VBR, 100 minimum, 980 average and 3000 maximum.

Using a transcoder like DVDShrink would be pretty lousy at that kind of bitrate.

PS, For dual layer you can double everything...audio 256, video 352x480 and 1800 kbps. It would actually be pretty good quality at these settings.

[davemcg37]

thanx for all the advice guys. i think i got a way, ive made 3 mpgs from the three films and joined/edited them. then what ive done is make a new 1 disc dvd template in tmpgenc and am running my huge mpg at the moment through tmpgenc, with a video bitrate of 1050kb/s, audio 112kb/s. dunno what itll turn out like quality wise! ill report back later

[GKar]

thanx for all the advice guys. i think i got a way, ive made 3 mpgs from the three films and joined/edited them. then what ive done is make a new 1 disc dvd template in tmpgenc and am running my huge mpg at the moment through tmpgenc, with a video bitrate of 1050kb/s, audio 112kb/s. dunno what itll turn out like quality wise! ill report back later

You ought to buy a dual layer burner, at least with one disk you'd get a decent bitrate onto it.

[davemcg37]

dual layer is just too new to be messing around with at this stage, especially with the price of the media and no d/l rw available. anyway this has turned out to be quite a challenge. one more thing, when this 17 hour reencode finally finishes, will nero be able to handle a file that big (4.3g) to burn onto dvdr? ive encoded to mpeg2 which i believe is dvd compliant.

[ZippyP.]

...will nero be able to handle a file that big (4.3g) to burn onto dvdr? ive encoded to mpeg2 which i believe is dvd compliant.

If you have the version of nero that burns dvd's then it better be able to handle files that are 4.3 GB, it wouldn't be much good if it didn't.

What resolution are you using? 352x240 is best for your bitrate and mpeg1 or mpeg2 are dvd compatible at that resolution.