"Movie only" mode for a documentry with 4 series p

[turdburglar]

I have successfully backed up the complete disc of a documentary with 4 series on the one disc it looks a bit blocky, it has gone from 6.5g down to 4472 on DVD2oneX. I searched for posts on splitting 1 disc to 2 DVD's for better quality and searched for "movie only" option for a series! the search raises more questions and confusion. Is it possible to remove two series (and how) then on another disc remove the other two series, making two discs each with two series per disc, can anyone tell me if there is a straightforward way to do this or is it just laughable?

[thoughton]

How bad is the "blockiness"? I only ask because I regularly compress 8 gig discs (each containing four 44min episodes) and the resulting quality is totally acceptable (occasional faint blocks in scenes with large bare walls which have a "gradient fill" kind of shading).

Are you using dvd2oneX at constant or variable rate? Although the manual recommends constant rate for longer discs I personally find that variable gives better results no matter what the duration of the disc.

Splitting each disc into two 2-episode discs would require some work. A starting approach might be to rip the individual episodes with 0sex or MTR and then do a basic author in Sizzle 0.1. You'd lose all menus and extras though. There's probably a more elegant way to do it which escapes me at the moment

[AntnyMD]

DVD2OneX will let you break up your dual-layer discs at the layer change point. This will allow you to copy your 8gig disc onto two DVD-R at the same quality as the original disc.

[thoughton]

I did try using dvd2onex, but on the one disc I tried the split point wasn't in between episodes so I ended up with 2.5 eps on disc 1 and 1.5 on disc 2. Maybe I am just a neat freak but I didn't like that

[AntnyMD]

DVD2OneX will allow you to break apart the disc by chapters and cells also. Stuff as much content onto one disc, then for the second disc take the rest of the content, rip some more from the original disc 2, and use the join feature to finish your backup disc 2 (and so on and so forth).

[pixeljammedia]

If you do not like the DVD2OneX method, use this:
1) Open YadeX and find the "Track" you want to save. In some series DVDs each part will have its own track. Look for the largest size tracks and drop down the triangle to see the previews.

2) Select the sections you want by Shift-Clicking everything you want to save together.

3) Save as Elementary streams making sure that the total selections do not exceed 4.3 GB. You can do a similar thing using OSeX and it keeps a running tally of the size of your selection. OSeX doesn't work on every DVD and has some problems in Panther so with a little math YadeX should do the trick.

4) Grab Sizzle and build DVDs with the Elementary streams you saved.

5) Burn

Repeat these steps with the remainder of your DVD.