Recreating a Series

[kirkmc]

I bought a 3 Series Boxset and want to gives series 3 to someone who has 1 & 2 (we couldn't find Series 3 to buy separately)
I have Nero and AnyDVD.
I Handbraked all the episodes and made an .iso with DVD Flick, then mounted that with Daemon.
Playing it with VLC shows no top menu, or any way to individually select the episodes, plus the lipsync is out. (The Handbraked files have perfect sync).
So I have 2 questions
What might work better than DVD Flick?
Must I use Handbrake, or can I (somehow) use the original VOB structure to do what I want? (Series 3 is split over 2 of the original disks)

The 7 episodes are slightly > 4.7GB but I should be ok to fit on one disk with DVD Shrink.
And the end user does want a DVD, not a set of files, which would be better/easier, but not an option.
Thanks for any help.

[manono]

If you're trying to back up DVDs, then don't use Handbrake.

Use Shrink or (better) AvsToDVD or DVD Rebuilder. Burn to disk using ImgBurn.

[october262]

I bought a 3 Series Boxset and want to gives series 3 to someone who has 1 & 2 (we couldn't find Series 3 to buy separately)
I have Nero and AnyDVD.
I Handbraked all the episodes and made an .iso with DVD Flick, then mounted that with Daemon.
Playing it with VLC shows no top menu, or any way to individually select the episodes, plus the lipsync is out. (The Handbraked files have perfect sync).
So I have 2 questions
What might work better than DVD Flick?
Must I use Handbrake, or can I (somehow) use the original VOB structure to do what I want? (Series 3 is split over 2 of the original disks)

The 7 episodes are slightly > 4.7GB but I should be ok to fit on one disk with DVD Shrink.
And the end user does want a DVD, not a set of files, which would be better/easier, but not an option.
Thanks for any help.

dvd shrink may not work with newer dvds.
you might try makemkv or dvdfab

[kirkmc]

> If you're trying to back up DVDs, then don't use Handbrake.
That was part of my question, it's not a straight 1:1 disk backup.
You both suggest alternatives to DVDShrink.....I'll look at them but first need the best method to create the iso or VIDEO_TS structure. One that has menus and good lipsync.

[manono]

...but first need the best method to create the iso or VIDEO_TS structure. One that has menus and good lipsync.

I already gave you 2. AvsToDVD will create new and rudimentry menus. DVD Rebuilder will use the original menus.

[kirkmc]

Just getting AvstoDVD now. It read like it was just an alternative to Shrink.

[orsetto]

Your error was trying to combine a two disc set into a single disc via the extra Handbrake + DVDflick steps.

Don't do that: it leads to crap video quality and issues like lipsync drift. Just make a normal backup of each of the two separate discs using DVDshrink. While DVDshrink may not be able to back up newer releases, most TV series sets still use an older format DVDshrink handles just fine. If by chance DVDshrink is unable to back up these discs, I recommend trying a newer similar updated direct disc backup utility like DVDfab.

Otherwise, the remaining alternatives are grim: you'd be stuck stripping the episodes off the disc as files using something like MakeMKV (much quicker and higher quality than Handbrake since it doesn't compress the original videos at all), then loading these files back into a dvd authoring app like DVDflick or AVStoDVD. The problem with this workflow is reduced video quality, and often lipsync drift unless you're willing to compromise on the menu feature. Both DVDflick and AVStoDVD seem to suffer much less incidence of lipsync audio drift with multi-episode authoring when you choose the "no menu" option. This isn't as inconvenient as it seems: a seven episode disc is easily navigated if you don't add any extra chaptering (leave each episode as a single long chapter, then its very fast to "blindly" jump from episode to episode using the chapter skip buttons).

Or, just explain to your friend that beggars can't be choosers: if they want direct episode access and guaranteed lip sync they might need to accept these episodes from you as video files on a data disc, to be played on a BluRay player or in a computer. Newer TVs might also play the files directly off a USB stick.

[kirkmc]

Yes, I'll just copy the DVDs and let them sort the epiosodes. This AVSTODVD was a dog of a thing, installed LOTS of files then sent me to the Readme to sort mscomctl.ocx. Told me to delete it and run the batch file. Did that and reported the file was missing. (Of course it was I'd just bloody deleted it!). Copied another one and then it said The module "C:\WINDOWS\SysWOW64\mscomctl.ocx" was loaded but the call to DIIUnregisterSewer failed with error code 0x80004005.
Wish I'd never tried to install it Probably mucked up that ocx. Hope I can get rid of all ok!
Thanks... just though something that worked was around.
Anything wrong with Nero or AnyDVD Rip to image? I have these already. Shrink is on old XP machine.

[orsetto]

AnyDVD should work OK, but there might be an issue if the straight disc image is too large to fit on a blank DVD: you'd still need DVDshrink to reduce the size. Before proceeding with AnyDVD, check the sizes of the two discs: if both under 4.7 Gb this idea will work well. If larger. you'll need DVDshrink (or use the CloneDVD companion app to AnyDVD, if you have that as well).

AVStoDVD is a very popular and versatile authoring tool, with excellent developer support here on VH, but it is indeed rather more involved to use than the ancient, fairly simple DVDflick. Despite a lot of hiccups with the long-obsolete DVDflick, some of us do still prefer it to the point we're willing to jump thru workaround hoops to keep using it. Nonetheless, its a good idea to also try to get AVStoDVD properly installed and learn the basics of how to use it: in these days when Microsoft is able to wipe out old application support at whim with a single forced OS update, having a currently supported alternative as a fallback option can be a lifesaver.

[davexnet]

I manually used regsvr32 to un-register then re-register, worked fine, no errors.
I think you have to use the 32 bit version of the regsvr32.exe by issuing the command from the correct folder,
ie. using CD to the syswow64 folder

[kirkmc]

Thanks for the feedback. I like ANYDVD and any chance to use it as I paid for it and familiar with it. But don't do this sort of video work very often. The developers for avstodvd obviously know of a problem with this ocx as it's covered in the ReadMe, but could be more informative. I had trouble running the supplied bat file. There's no Admin command prompt, only PowerShell (Admin) and that would not CD to Program Files (x86) for some reason. So I had to r-click the bat file - run as admin - from it's location. That gave the 0x80004005 error. But just downloaded and installed it again now and no errors. Presumable all the components are ok, it fires up but as yet haven't a clue how to use it it what to expect from it.
There's nothing that lets you add individual episodes from a DVD or existing structure , and create the VIDEO_TS folder (with a menu) ?
I did a whole disk copy to find it's double layer but Shrink seems to have handled it ok and I've two folders now ready to burn.
Very disappointed with results form DVD Flick. Video quality was more than adequate , but the lip sync ruined it. The source Handbraked files were perfect in every aspect. I wish the guy who wants this would use them, but old habits are hard to break.

[davexnet]

There's some good support for AVStoDVD in this forum, as well as the author occasionally joining in and updating the
program from time to time.

Sounds like you have a solution by "shrinking" the original disks. To do a custom disk, Orsetto's idea would probably have worked,
create each episode in it's own mkv file; I don't think AVStoDVD would have re-encoded, since they should be DVD compliant -
therefore you still have the original quality

Regarding the Admin powershell. Can't you just type in CMD to put you in command mode?

Is the loss of lip sync because your intermediate mp4 files used variable frame rate? This is known to cause problems in certain
situations

[kirkmc]

I didn't realise Orsetto was suggesting a "custom" disk and I could make each episode an mkv, Is that with DVDFab ?
> Can't you just type in CMD to put you in command mode?. I can now but I could not yesterday even after numerous attempts. Weird.
>Is the loss of lip sync because your intermediate mp4 files used variable frame rate? That's a thought.. will check out. I never change anything in HB (except the compression value when wanting something really small to email). Is there a AVStoDVD for dummies? To get an idea what it'll do. My original task is now complete and disks done - just straight copies.

[orsetto]

Since you now have the two discs shrinked and ready to go, you could take another crack at the DVDflick combo idea from a different angle.

From the VH software library, download and install VOB2MPG (Win7) or DVDVob2Mpg (Win 10). Use one of these to extract the videos from the shrink data: the result will be several MPG files. Identify the ones you need for your friend and rename them accordingly (i.e. TV Show S03E01, etc). Import these into DVDflick and arrange the details as you prefer (dvd name, number of chapters in each show, menu template, menu thumbnail image for each show). Then make the following important settings:

For each episode, click Edit Title in the right hand sidebar, click Audio then Edit in the popup, in the next popup check the box on bottom left that reads "Ignore Audio Delay For This Track". Click Accept twice to dismiss the popups and return to the main project screen. Repeat for every episode.

After making the audio changes, go to Project Settings, click on Video, click Advanced, and click the box that reads "Copy MPEG2 Streams". Click Accept twice to return to the main project screen. This tells DVDflick to import the files without attempting to shrink audio or video any further, helping cut down the chances of lipsync drift. Save the project at this point.

Note the color of the project size bar on the left: if yellow, you can now hit Create Project to author the dvd. If red, all 7 episodes together are too big to fit on a single 4.7 GB blank so you'll need to delete a few and make two discs. Delete episodes five thru seven and the bar should turn yellow: do not save the project again! Instead, change the project name to include "Part 1" or "Vol. 1", then hit the Create Project button and it should author the first DVD in approx 15 mins or less. Once you have the first volume authored, quit DVDflick: it will ask if you want to save the project. Choose NO.

Reopen the project, and you'll see all seven episodes again. This time, delete eps one thru four, add "Part 2" or "Vol. 2" to the project title, and hit Create Project again. This will author the second dvd. Check both of these in a software dvd player on your computer before burning: does the lipsync stay steady? If so you can burn the discs and they should play OK for your friend. If not, you're banging your head into a wall: trash the two DVDflick projects and just burn the images you made with DVDshrink.

Over many years, it has been my experience that DVDflick (and to a somewhat lesser extent AVStoDVD) can develop maddening lip sync drift issues when adding more that two videos to a project, depending on the source file specs. Sometimes checking the "Ignore Audio Delay" option fixes this, but not always. When it doesn't, the only recourse its to ditch the menu: for some reason, the existence of a menu trolls the lip sync with some video sources. You may also find some dvds maintain lip sync if played untouched from start to finish, but will lose it the second you try to use the speed search or chapter skip functions. There's an element of voodoo to the whole thing: sometimes it all comes together, sometimes it doesn't.

And as I recommend repeatedly in other similar threads, there is a point at which we need to tell friends/family to get over themselves: when its too difficult or impossible to do them a favor to their exact specifications, they need to swallow whatever we can provide them and be gracious about it. There are worse things in life than a DIY tv series dvd with no menu: they'll cope.

[davexnet]

Here's a basic beginners guide
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/353284-AVStoDVD-beginners-guide-Any-video-to-DVD-Video

external
https://www.ghacks.net/2008/08/24/create-a-dvd/

[kirkmc]

Thanks for the detailed instructions orsetto and will let you know how I get on. It's a real shame lipsync can be so dodgy. Someone needs to create a digital clapper board.
Also appreciate the links Dave. Cheers

[kirkmc]

Orsetto, I've struck a bit of a glitch. The converted mpg files are not complete episodes. They're about 27 mins duration. The second mpg file has 2nd part of Ep1 and 1st part of Ep2 and so on
Is this unusual ? I have got VideoReDo TVSuite V6 and could (perhaps) load them all into that and 'cut' each episode but that may negate the process you're advising I do. Which btw is superbly detailed. I'll wait until you comment before going any further. I did notice DVD VobEMpg 2.0 had an option to make one file with everything, which may be the way to go and you have another means to 'slice' it up.
I must Google and remind myself what the other files on the disk .bup .ifo are. Maybe they contain data for the splits?
The mpgs do play with good lip sync so far. Disk Folder attached

[orsetto]

The screenshot you posted appears to be of the actual dvd contents, or the contents of the DVDshrink folder. The "dvd player" disc spec does include a main VIDEO_TS folder containing all those goofy supplementary files to describe the menus and disc interface for a player, and they do tend to break videos up into more than one VOB piece (these work seamlessly as one video in normal play). Each VOB container is limited to 1 GB of video: if a single episode of the series is larger than that you'll find it was split into two affiliated VOBs on the original DVD (and any backup/shrink folders you made).

Either of the two VOB utilities I suggested should automatically pull only the VOB video pieces out of that folder, and stitch together any split VOBs to create a single MPG file for each episode. At least, thats the way VOB2MPG works for me on Windows 7: I have not used DVDVob2Mpg since I don't have any Win 10 PCs that require it. Perhaps check your settings in DVDVob2Mpg: run the conversion again, but this time note in the Save dialog exactly where the MPGs are being saved on your PC. They might be strewn about your Documents folder if you didn't choose somewhere else, generically titled "VTS_1.mpg" etc for each episode. The utility normally just extracts the VOBs and losslessly reassembles/repackages them as MPG files (VOB is just a special DVD container for MPG video). The MPGs are saved as copies to whatever folder on your hard drive you specify in the Save dialog- your original dvd folders or images are not affected in any way and remain as they were.

I'm not familiar with VideoReDo, but my understanding is its an excellent feature-rich app. If you can't get DVDVob2Mpg to work properly, see if VideoReDo has the same "extract VOBs from a VIDEO_TS folder and convert them to MPG" feature. It shouldn't be necessary to convert the entire DVD of episodes into one continuous MPG, then redundantly split it back into the individual eps: DVDVob2Mpg should absolutely provide you with intact, complete individual MPGs for each episode. I'm sorry you keep hitting snags with this project, hope one of these utilities does the job for you. At least you're dealing with original DVD files: these are far less problematic than downloaded MP4, AVI or MKV files (DVDflick makes me jump thru crazy hoops with some of those: more often than I'd like, I need to deconstruct them and load audio and video separately or the program spins its encoding wheels interminably).

[Alwyn]

...........

[kirkmc]

Tried again with DVDVob2Mpg and got the same results. If I'm dragging in .vob files is that enough for it to get the parameters to extract single episodes?
Changed to VideoRedo and think we have a winner. I'll attach the 2 menus, it shows the files with episode-length durations and they match what's on the disk.
There are settings and options which I avoided, just gong with defaults. I was puzzled by the final prompt to "fix" rather than "Save" or "OK" but clicking Fix
outputted a full episode mpg file (lipsync OK) plus presented me with the Editor and file in memory (which i just closed).
So I would think my approach is use VideoRedo in place of DVDVob2Mpg and continue with importing the mpgs into DVDFlick, and msg 14 instructions?

[Alwyn]

That's good, I've never extracted episodes using VRD, only separate "movies". I learn something every day.

[kirkmc]

Yes, it seems a winner.. and it is quick! Especially from HDD but is taking about 17 mins to copy the 7GB DVD to HDD. Don't know if that's about right or my slow ole optical.

[davexnet]

Yes, it seems a winner.. and it is quick! Especially from HDD but is taking about 17 mins to copy the 7GB DVD to HDD. Don't know if that's about right or my slow ole optical.

Quite a few of the drives had riplock, could be that kicking in

[kirkmc]

Don''t know that one. AnyDVD is running in the background.

[kirkmc]

Orsetto, ready now for next phase. Prob tomorrow.

[kirkmc]

I've imported all 7 titles into DVDFlick and following your instructions have clicked Edit Title on the first one, but can't see an 'Audio' button (just Audio Tracks which seems to set a language) or a popup with "Ignore Audio Delay.."
Also not sure about the menu template or thumbnail options. None of that seemed to make a lot of sense. I'll try Googling .. but if you have any further advice, thanks... I have DVDFlick version 1.3.0.7 build 738 32
I recall in my first effort I had no menu at all (in VLC maybe different in a DVD player??). A d-click on part of it toggled the screen size. It didn't seem like that was what it should do though.

[Alwyn]

Videoredo does DVDs with menus.

[rrats]

Handbrake.

If the series is interlaced, go yadif -> bob

If telecined put IVTC to default

[orsetto]

I didn't realize you weren't entirely familiar with the DVDflick interface, kirkmc. While I can't really post a complete tutorial here, I'll add some screen shots to help guide you. (AVStoDVD or VideoReDo will have similar settings, but obviously present them as a different interface.)

After adding the mpg episodes to DVDflick, highlight (click on) the first episode to turn it blue. Then click the Edit button at top right of the screen as in first pic.

After clicking the Edit button, a popup screen will appear. Click on Audio Tracks button at left, as in second pic.

Click Edit button at right, and another popup will appear as in third pic. Now you will see the Ignore Delay checkbox at bottom left. Click it. Then click Accept until you are back at the main screen as in first pic. Repeat the Ignore Delay setting for all remaining episodes.

At main screen, highlight the first episode again, and click the Edit button at right. In the resulting popup, click Chapters button at left to reveal the chapter settings you can make (fourth pic). Choose your preferences. If you want all the episodes to have the same number of chapters, etc, click the Apply To All Titles button, then Accept your way back to the main screen. (If you want different chapter settings for each episode, make them one at a time using the Next Title button, then Accept).

Back at the main screen, highlight an episode and click Edit at right. In resulting popup click General as shown in fifth pic. You will see settings to change the menu thumbnail image (via the time arrows) and a setting for frame format. Make sure this is set to 4:3 or Widescreen to match the original TV episode format. You can move from ep to ep to make the settings using the Next Title button. When Finished, Accept your way back to main screen.

Highlight an episode and click Edit at right. In the resulting popup click Video Sources at left (sixth pic). Here again you want to make sure the setting (16:9 Widescreen or 4:3) matches the format of the original videos. When those settings are finished, Accept your way back to the main screen.

Click Project Settings at the top, General at left, and you can enter a disc title. Click Video button at left, and you'll see an Advanced button (seventh pic).

Click Advanced and a small popup will appear (eighth pic) This is where you tell DVDflick not to re-encode the imported mpg files by clicking the Copy MPEG-2 Streams button. Don't change anything else: most imported videos are handled well by the default settings. When making a DVD for standalone players, theres usually nothing to be gained by fooling with the interlace etc settings: better to let the disc player and your TV automatically handle that stuff. Deinterlacing and whatnot is more often used for standalone MP4/MKV files.

Accept your way back to the main screen, then click on Menu Settings button at top to choose a menu design for the disc. The default is no menu unless you choose one. There are six basic designs to choose from, the most useful is Mosaic because its a plain blue background showing four titles per page. Plasma also shows four titles but with smaller text and thumbnails. The other designs are ugly, confusing, and hard to read. Note the menu design name (Mosaic, Plasma, Orange LED, etc) gets replaced by the disc title name you enter in the Project Settings: if you do not enter a disc title name, the opening menu will remain blank and all you will see is the background design with Play/Resume and Select Title options.

After selecting a menu design, you can click the Preview button to show you what the menu of the disc will look like with the titles and thumbnails. Note all of the menus operate in two stages: the opening screen when the disc loads shows the disc name and two text options (Play/Resume and Select Title). Clicking Play/Resume starts video play directly, clicking Select Title will display the title names and thumbnails for you to choose a particular episode. When finished with the menu options, Accept your way back to main screen.

Click Create DVD button at top of main screen to begin authoring your dvd.