Help with Chapters on a DVD Recorder

[scorpio47]

Hello - I am helping a friend backup some old VHS recordings. I have transferred them over via VHS-DVD recorder. I originally copied a couple to DVD-R and those worked fine except I had no chapters. Reading through the manual, it says that I can add chapters if I use DVD+RW or DVD-RW. I had a bunch of +RW's handy, so I used them. It comes out fine, and I have added the chapters via the DVD recorder. The problem is that any other standalone players or PC's will NOT recognize those "chapters" that the DVD recorder added. When I put the discs back into the recorder, they recognize the "chapters" just fine. It does have the pesky VIDEO_RM folder along with the SONATA files, but I'm not quite sure what to do with them. I can copy the +RW's and they'll play fine in standalones or on a PC, but WITHOUT the chapters, and the chapter feature is something that I rather need as they are long pieces of video. ANY help any of you can provide would be MUCH appreciated. Thanks in advance!

[politiken]

Hi - Your DVD recorders ability to add chapters is an amendment, similar to adding an external subtitle to a avi file when backplaying it on a PC. A true DVD chapter is an integrated part of the DVD structure and therefore you must demux the DVD into its elementary parts and then remux - this time adding a chapter list. You will need applications like:

PgcDemux
ChapEditGFD -> http://download.videohelp.com/gfd/edcounter.php?file=download/GUIforDvdauthor104.zip
MuxMan (chapters must be a frame list in MuxMan if I remember correctly)

So You need to change time-format to frame-format:
Frame = ( CCC / 1000 + SS + MM * 60 + TT * 60 * 60 ) * FPS
where FPS = 25 in PAL country.

First then the chapters will work in any standalone DVD player.

regards Pol

[scorpio47]

Awesome! Thank you for your help! I was hoping not have to do all that, but if that's the only solution, it will have to do. If I'm understanding, all I have to do is demux and not have to render, so that should help a lot time-wise. I will let you know my results. Thanks again!!!