questions/problem with DvdStripper

[spiritgumm]

Dvdstripper works for Single-movie dvd, or the First movie of a Two-movie(duallayer) dvd. I'm only leaving the menus, movie & trailer. For 2-movie dvds, I'm also deleting the first menu (Title menu) that lets you choose which movie to play.
PROBLEM: I can't get a working dvd of the Second movie from a 2-movie dvd.
When I preview the stripped 2nd movie in 'shrink, it looks like the other stripped movies I've done, but when I try to play it, nothing happens. I burned it so I could try in dvd player, and no video is output but the player's display shows it's quickly scrolling thru several chapters, then player stops.
I'm not doing anything different when I strip the 2nd movie: I've stripped it individually as well as in the "Split the disc " option (does both movies).
I'm too confused by the tutorials on using Pgcedit or Ifoedit to strip manually. Short of giving up and buying DvdRemake, how can I fix this problem?
OTHER QUESTIONS: when I try to burn one of my Successful stripped videos, Nero warns "Non-compliant dvd files" and when I continue, warns again about "Non-critical etc." They play fine. Should I run these successful stripped files thru some kind of Dvd-compliance-making software? Is there such a software?
QUESTION: any way to use Dvdstripper for video files already on your computer (rather than having to load a Dvd thru Dvddecryptor?
QUESTION: on 2-movie dvds, the separate movie menus have a "Menu" button which is suppose to take you to the Title Menu (where you choose which movie). Since I'm deleting the Title Menu, I'd like to deactivate that button on the movie menu, but when I did with Menu modder (declick it), the dvd wouldn't work at all. Any ideas about that, or do I need to leave it alone?

[Seeker47]

Dvdstripper works for Single-movie dvd, or the First movie of a Two-movie(duallayer) dvd. I'm only leaving the menus, movie & trailer. For 2-movie dvds, I'm also deleting the first menu (Title menu) that lets you choose which movie to play.

Not sure how much help I can be here, but I did use DVDStripper early on, and still use it once in awhile. The first big problem is that it ceased development at a relatively early stage. (The author apparently went on to develop a commercial product instead, perhaps even the one you mentioned in your post.) The next big problem is that it relies heavily on IFOEDIT, which hasn't been updated in a long time either, and which one user here described as being "as buggy as a porchlight in June, particularly for NTSC material" -- or words to that effect. I think IFOedit may be much better under full manual control, by someone who really knows what they are doing. DVDStripper strikes me as a an elaborate wrapper around Decryptor and IFOedit -- probably done with pre-written scripts ? -- sort of in the way RipIt4Me integrates some other pre-existing programs. If it is based on scripts (and probably even if a program isn't) , there are bound to be plenty of new or unforseen conditions that trip it up and render it useless. The difference is that with RipIt4Me, the development is quite active and ongoing. The author keeps adapting it to current contingencies. Anyway, long story short, I found that DVDStripper offered some neat features for a free program, but it could only deal with a minority of the DVDs I threw at it, like maybe 20% at best. Otherwise, I just wound up with a variety of familiar errors and failures, and often with the program crashing and generating a dump log. I don't really know what distinguished the DVDs it did work on, but if forced to guess I'd say they probably had very rudimentary authoring and little or no protection.

PROBLEM: I can't get a working dvd of the Second movie from a 2-movie dvd.
I'm not doing anything different when I strip the 2nd movie: I've stripped it individually as well as in the "Split the disc " option (does both movies).

Yeah: been there, done that. As I said, if it happens to be a DVD that DVDStripper can handle, you're in business. If not, not.

I'm too confused by the tutorials on using Pgcedit or Ifoedit to strip manually. Short of giving up and buying DvdRemake, how can I fix this problem?

My experience is generally similar. I've had somewhat better luck with the tutorials, but not being very technical, find that I have to keep returning to them closely, and lack much facility in using the programs. It can be frustrating. (Have you tried VOBblanker ? That covers some of what you want to do, though it will be tutorial time again.) Ultimately, I suspect I may have to go with one of the commercial programs like VideoRedo or DVDRemake, and hope the user-interface is a lot more accessible to non-techies.

OTHER QUESTIONS: when I try to burn one of my Successful stripped videos, Nero warns "Non-compliant dvd files" and when I continue, warns again about "Non-critical etc." They play fine. Should I run these successful stripped files thru some kind of Dvd-compliance-making software? Is there such a software?

FixVTS. Small utility. Simple enough to use, though I couldn't really explain exactly what it's doing. I've seen the Nero errors you mention. In many of those cases, if DVDSTripper actually worked, your DVD burn goes through, and the resulting disc plays, I'd say forget the errors: case closed. (I've crashed FixVTS a couple times too.)

QUESTION: any way to use Dvdstripper for video files already on your computer (rather than having to load a Dvd thru Dvddecryptor?

No, I think that's an unfortunate limitation of DvdDecryptor itself.

QUESTION: on 2-movie dvds, the separate movie menus have a "Menu" button which is suppose to take you to the Title Menu (where you choose which movie). Since I'm deleting the Title Menu, I'd like to deactivate that button on the movie menu, but when I did with Menu modder (declick it), the dvd wouldn't work at all. Any ideas about that, or do I need to leave it alone?

I don't know. But if you're still referring to DVDStripper, I think that was one of the most problemmatic things. I often wondered if there was any difference, based on just what video or menu items you decided to keep vs. just which ones you decided to remove. Did a particular set of choices just happen to torpedo something structurally, and maybe a different set of Keep | Discard choices could have worked ? There's only so much time and effort available for messing with these things. At some point, you just want a tool that works reliably -- for you -- even if you have to pay for it.

[spiritgumm]

Thanks, Seeker. Forgot I had Fixvts. That fixed the non-compliance issues. Out of curiosity, I tried running it on the 2nd movie (the problem dvd) but didn't make it work.
I can't tell if Vobblanker can edit or blank out Menus. The guides I saw only addressed the video.
Seems like there must be an easy fix to this Dvdstripper problem, either by knowing what you shouldn't originally deselect, or by tinkering with the resulting file. I tried running it thru Vobblanker with correcting VOBs, etc, on, but no improvement. As you say, there's only so much time to waste on learning from trial and error. Since someone made this software, it shouldn't be necessary for us to rediscover how it works like some ancient dead foreign language.
I just posted my problem on Dvdrbase.com, where the original Dvdstripper forum has relocated itself.

[Seeker47]

I just posted my problem on Dvdrbase.com, where the original Dvdstripper forum has relocated itself.

I didn't see much there of an actual forum or sub-forum for DVDStripper . . . but if you should find out anything interesting, please let us know.