The old chestnut - DL Authoring and setting Layer Break

[jimmalenko]

Just picked up a Pioneer 111 burner and ready to embrace DL burning. I dug around and saw plenty of talk regarding backing up existing DVDs, but could not really find much info on authoring new content from scratch.

Saw that the PGCEdit guide was held in high regard so gave it a go. Two discs worked fine and allowed me to choose the beginning of a title as the LB position. However on my third attempt, I get the following error from PGCEdit:



As I understand it, I need to split cell 2 of Title 5.

I have seen advice that DVDRemake Pro and VOBBlanker can split cells (I have both), but I'm wondering whether I need to go to this trouble or if I can just load up IMGBurn and let it choose the optimal layer break position automatically, and if there is anything to look out for or be aware of if this is the case ?

It does not bother me if the layer break is in the middle of a scene.

Any advice is greatly appreciated

[Edmund Blackadder]

You must have either a new cell or a new chapter for the layer break spot. It's part of the DVD9-Video specification. This post explains it, even though you might have read it already:

https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?p=1423828#1423828

Even though I talk there about PTP DVD9 discs, but the explanation (and the solution) applies to any disc that doesn't have enough cells or chapters around the middle section of the disc.

Once you have inserted the new cell/chapter in a good spot, burn it only with RecordNow 7.3 or 8.0 as a VIDEO_TS folder in Data Mode. If it still rejects to burn, then you have not found a good place yet - keep searching. Or alternatively put several new cells around the middle of the compilation. And after you have a perfect master copy made with RN, you can safely use DVD Decrypter/ImgBurn in ISO mode to make the duplicates.

Oh, and I forgot to say, don't use DVD-R DL. Only DVD+R DL will do a good job with the layer break.

P.S.: If you use ImgBurn just to burn the ISO as is in its current questionable state, it will freeze at the layer break spot on quite a few players (but not all, so your milage may vary).

[jimmalenko]

Thanks for your input


I played around with some projects yesterday while waiting for advice and worked out how to split cells in DVDRemake Pro. After doing this, PGCEdit gave me the start of the new cell as an option, and created the ISO without trouble. Then used ImgBurn to burn and the resultant disc played fine, apart from a weird timecode issue.

I authored with auto chapters every 5 mins, but say I create a new cell at 2 min, the dvd player counts to 2 min, hits the new cell, skips to 4 min immediately, continues to 7 min at which point it hits the next chapter stop it corrects itself back to 5 min. All of the footage gets played, and if I hit the Next button at say the 6 min mark in the new cell, it also corrects itself back to 5 min. Strange !

I'm pretty sure that I can split the cell in PGCEdit but I couldn't work out how for the life of me. I could get a new cell created, but couldn't get it to start at the exact timecode I wanted, so if there's any PGCEdit gurus out there your input would also be greatly appreciated.