spanning file on multiple CD-R

[fromoven]

Hi, I'm new at this thing (started this week-end!). I've used tmpgenc to produce the mpg file and it warns me that it's too big for the CD (using the wizard). How do I change that if I want to keep the same "quality" (the fields are grayed out ?!?). How do I span the file to fit on more than one CD?

Thanks

Mike

[pbhalerao]

Hi fromoven,

I am also not an expert. The tools I use (DVD Rip to CD-R) are Smart Ripper 2.41, DVD2AVI and TMPGEnc. I had the same issue of fitting the movie to 2 disks. I do the job manually using paper and pencil. While using SmartRipper do not select all chapters. Select about 3-5 chapters manually. Keep a check on the time window. Ensure that the resultant decrypted VOB does not exceed 24 minutes. Thus for a standard movie, you will end up with about 5 to 6 VOB files. When these VOB files are encoded to MPEG1 in TMPGEnc, they will translate to a size that will match the number of minutes. This means that 3 files (assuming 24 minutes each) will fit on each CD-R (74 min).

There is no fixed answer. Usually a ballpark figure of 10 chapters of the DVD translate to 23 to 25 minutes of the movie. I manually calculate the chapter lengths and note down on paper such as:

VCD 1
====
1. VCD Chapter 1 --> DVD Chapters 1-9 --> 19'45"
2. VCD Chapter 2 --> DVD Chapters 10-19 --> 23'11"
...

VCD 2
====
1. VCD Chapter 5 --> DVD Chapters 29-39 --> 18'33"
2. VCD Chapter 6 --> DVD Chapters 40-48 --> 21'35"
...
etc.

Once, the above matrix is calculated by me, I start the actual ripping process. The above method is not elegant I admit and takes more time but I said earlier, I am new at this. Some of the pros here, might come up with a better answer.

One of the nice feature of the above method is, I can create menus with thumbnails and my own chapter names.

[mdm]

After you have made your MPG file, just use TMPGenc's "MPEG Tools" on the file menu to split the original into two pieces.

[fromoven]

Thanks guys, I'll try that (at least I have some way out now and I'm less desperate!)

Mike