Authoring multiple DVDs to a BD

[RBTO]

I'm a newbie here so have patience. I've looked around on this after discovering a new tool - AVStoDVD, but haven't found a definitive answer. What I'm trying to do is combine several DVDs onto a single BD. My reasoning is that I can extract the MPEG files for each DVD and then combine them with AVStoDVD (with menu buttons for each feature), but my question is, will this work to create a new VIDEO_TS folder of extended length which can be burned onto a 25 or 50GB BD and played in a stand-alone BD player? I don't need menus - just the features which are already in MPEG form.

[Cornucopia]

No. AVStoDVD makes DVDs only. No BDs. It won't be M2TS type (BD MPEG transport streams), it'll be VOB type (DVD MPEG program streams). To make a proper BD you need a proper BD authoring tool.

If you're trying to make a "DVD-Video title on BD media", this is a format that is highly untested, so support would be extremely hit-or-miss. If you've got the BD media, make a BDMV-compliant title.

Scott

[Kerry56]

No, this probably won't work exactly as you want. You can set the output of AVStoDVD to a custom size, and thus make a very big DVD from it, larger than you would normally see. This will allow you to get the most efficient use of the blank Blu-ray media.

Then use DVD2BD Express to make a Blu-ray out of it. I would suggest setting chapter interval rate in Preferences of AVStoDVD to 999, else you get slight glitches in the Blu-ray at 5 minute intervals where the chapters would normally be placed.

I made a guide for this process years ago: http://club.myce.com/f32/guide-combining-dvd-videos-into-blu-ray-331859/

But really, its outdated and much easier to do this with BD Rebuilder. Put all of your mpeg files into one folder. Then import them into BD Rebuilder using File-->Import-->Video Files. BD Rebuilder will make a very simple menu, so you can select each separate video. Set the output of BD Rebuilder to Target Size BD-25.

The result will be a Blu-ray movie, with a simple menu, that should play in any Blu-ray player.

[RBTO]

No. AVStoDVD makes DVDs only. No BDs. It won't be M2TS type (BD MPEG transport streams), it'll be VOB type (DVD MPEG program streams). To make a proper BD you need a proper BD authoring tool.

If you're trying to make a "DVD-Video title on BD media", this is a format that is highly untested, so support would be extremely hit-or-miss. If you've got the BD media, make a BDMV-compliant title.

Scott

Actually I was desiring the latter - DVD formated data on the larger capacity BD media. I wasn't sure that would work since I don't know what a Blu-Ray player looks for when it gets BD media and may find the DVD files indecipherable?? I also wasn't sure if AVStoDVD could crunch all those MPEG files and deliver an output in the 25GB range.

Read my next entry.

[RBTO]

No, this probably won't work exactly as you want. You can set the output of AVStoDVD to a custom size, and thus make a very big DVD from it, larger than you would normally see. This will allow you to get the most efficient use of the blank Blu-ray media.

So far so good.

Then use DVD2BD Express to make a Blu-ray out of it. I would suggest setting chapter interval rate in Preferences of AVStoDVD to 999, else you get slight glitches in the Blu-ray at 5 minute intervals
where the chapters would normally be placed.

Not sure we're talking the same thing. I want to use Blu-Ray media, but put a single TS file on it which has the individual DVD features as menu selectable items (just like a regular DVD menu). I don't necessarily desire a BD file structure unless that is necessary for a stand-alone BD player (BD so it can play the BD media) to recognize the disc and play it.

I made a guide for this process years ago: http://club.myce.com/f32/guide-combining-dvd-videos-into-blu-ray-331859/

I will check that out.

But really, its outdated and much easier to do this with BD Rebuilder. Put all of your mpeg files into one folder. Then import them into BD Rebuilder using File-->Import-->Video Files. BD Rebuilder will make a very simple menu, so you can select each separate video. Set the output of BD Rebuilder to Target Size BD-25.

The result will be a Blu-ray movie, with a simple menu, that should play in any Blu-ray player.

But this sounds pretty good to me, and I will probably end up going the BD Rebuilder route. Does BD Rebuilder bloat the size of the of the MPEG files when they are put into the BD format? All of the MPEG files I'm looking at, total up to just short of 25GB (9 separate DVD features).

Thank's Cornucopia and Kerry56 for your replies and suggestions.

[Cornucopia]

DVD-Video format doesn't EVER use a single TS (and here, I believe you mean to say "VIDEO_TS.VOB" or "VTS_##_#.VOB"-type) file. It needs 1 or 2 or more for the MENU structure and 1 or 2 or more for the Video TitleSets, which may or may NOT be broken up into individual Titles (with their own series of files). ALL of which can never be more than "1GB-minus-1byte", so a 25GB-spanning title will at least have 1 VOB for the menu and ~24-26 VOBs for the movie, depending upon where in the file it can cleanly break it up. Regardless, in order to play in a settop player, you will either need to have a compliant DVD-Video structure or a compliant BDMV structure.

BTW, TS in modern video nomenclature refers more to Transport Streams (e.g. MyVideo.M2TS) than it does to TitleSets (which is what DVD refers to).

Scott

[Kerry56]

All of the MPEG files I'm looking at, total up to just short of 25GB (9 separate DVD features).

The actual amount of room on a 25g disc will only be about 23.3gb of data. If you put more than that in your compilation, BD Rebuilder will re-encode everything to fit your target.

I would advise putting less than 23gb in each single layer disc to avoid this.

[RBTO]

DVD-Video format doesn't EVER use a single TS (and here, I believe you mean to say "VIDEO_TS.VOB" or "VTS_##_#.VOB"-type) file. It needs 1 or 2 or more for the MENU structure and 1 or 2 or more for the Video TitleSets, which may or may NOT be broken up into individual Titles (with their own series of files)................

My bad. What I meant to say was a single VIDEO_TS folder (I have edited that in my original post) which would hold all the goodies you mention. The contents of the VIDEO_TS folder would be derived from the original DVD feature MPEGs by the authoring software and fit the requirements you described. Question is: will that play as a BIG DVD if it's on Blu-Ray media?

I will most likely adopt the approach Kerry56 provided and work toward a BD compliant structure using BD Rebuilder, which should guarantee playability on a BD machine.

[RBTO]

Just info for those interested.

I went ahead and used AVStoDVD to put the nine individual DVD features on a single BD in a single VIDEO_TS folder (wanted to see if it would work).

The folder ended up around 38GB in size, so I used a DL BD disc. It took about 5 hours for AVStoDVD to compile the final VIDEO_TS folder which contained a little over 10 hours worth of video. I selected custom size in AVStoDVD for the output, and used ImgBurn to burn that VIDEO_TS folder to the BD (no problems there).

The disc plays on my computer using MPC-HC just fine and the menu thumbnails work just as they would with a regular DVD, selecting the individual features. However, my Panasonic BD player has trouble with the disc (kind of expected). It accepts the disc, but just comes up with an on-screen list of BD titles which is blank, so there is no way to access the videos.

I can live with the disc the way it is since I can take the disc with me and play it on my laptop (which was my original intent anyway), but I will follow through on Kerry56's suggestion with BD Rebuilder just to learn something about it and see if I can get a BD compliant disc.

[theewizard]

i like discussions like this

I learned something from it

now all i have to do is remember it in the future, should the need arrive