Is there a way to remove episodes from a series?

[Madmp3zz]

I'm trying to backup my Sopranos 1st three seasons.
What I am doing is using DVD Decrypter, then InstantCopy w/ reg hack..
I believe that due to the actual size of the DVDs themselves I can not get good quality, the max i can get with InstantCopy is 63%.

What I was wondering is...
The whole 4 dvd set of the 1st season has 13 episodes...
Can I grab 3 at a time and burn them with menus, if so can I edit the actual menu within the dvd(ie. remove episode 4 from the menue and add it to the next one)
Or can I get good quality using any other apps without having to use dvdxcopy.. I was hoping to save on DVDs...

If so can someone point me in the right direction?

[Vejita-sama]

I thought that IC w/ the reg hack allowed you to pick and choose which titlesets/videos you wanted to back up. If not then what some people have been doing is using either IFOEdit or DVDShrink (set quaility so it doesn't re-encode/transcode) to remove unwanted titlesets/videos.

Then using DVD2One or IC to trans-code only the remaining video. However, I personally have never done this But there's a pretty good guide to the whole process at:

http://www.mrbass.org/instantcopy/

[Madmp3zz]

[quote]

I thought that IC w/ the reg hack allowed you to pick and choose which titlesets/videos you wanted to back up. If not then what some people have been doing is using either IFOEdit or DVDShrink (set quaility so it doesn't re-encode/transcode) to remove unwanted titlesets/videos.

IC doesn't allow you to do that with this set, but even after I do that how would I add the one left over to the next set I create? I would then have to add the episode I removed to the next session of 3 which in turn would mess up the next menu on the original DVD. In the long run I want to make the 4 DVD set into a 5 DVD set. I was hoping there was a way to edit the actual Menu too.

I just tried dvd2one and extracted each episone to individual folders, but each episode now has the same named .vob's.
What app can I use to bring them all together keeping existing chapters.
Any Ideas?

I can't believe how many people viewed this post without any recommendations...

[thingimijig]

dont know if you have it but i use maestro for such things.

use dvd decrypter in ifo mode to get the individual episodes then import the ones i want into maestro.
i also grab a still of the menu using powerdvd and import that then set up the menu leaving out the episode(s).

once its finished compiling, if its to big i put it through dvd2one in full disc mode.

thingimijig.

[odd]

Madmp3zz,
Did you get it to work for you? I've run into the same thing with the OZ series. Each disc has 3 episodes & I want to reduce it to 2 episodes so I can get full quality.

Please let me know if you figured it out & what you used to do it. I'm going to see if I can use Maestro as was suggested.

Thanks,
Odd

[Codesmith]

I have had the same problem. You cannot independently select episodes with InstaCopy. DVD-X-Copy will do the trick, but for some reason it tells me that it will split before episode 2 of 4 when it really is correctly splitting before 3. Maybe it is counting from zero?

I also considered trying DVD-Tool Box to do the split, but I haven't tried it yet.

[Codesmith]

Ok I tried DVD Tool Box no joy

DVD X COPY will break it into 2 DVDs by replacing the episodes stored on the other disc with a brief movie displaying the words "INSERT DISC X".

I dislike this solution because its not free software, and it adds a piracy warning banner that cannot be skipped.

I can use Instacopy to shrink the resoltion 50% and fit everything on one disk, but I would rather just use X copy and keep everything at high quality.

[Vejita-sama]

DVD Tool box and IFOedit can be used to strip out (or rather only keep) VOB ID. IIRC the Sopranos DVDs are set up with seamless branching and mulitple PGC. That's why if you rip just the eps (eg. smartripper) you'll get:

vob1
vob2
vob6
vob8

In which case you'll need to check which VOB files actually have video data (normally one does not) and then re-name them in increasing numerical order.

Without seeing the disc I can't tell you which VOB IDs to strip or keep. You can rip each eps, fix the vobs (as mentioned above), de-mux, the re-author the m2v/ac3 files.

Or I'd try DVD Shrink (2.0 and 2.2 have a preview window) and convert the unwanted eps to 'compress to picture.' That should leave the file structor intake, while maintaining all the menus.

[vance43211]

u can use ifoedit to split it to 2 disc and still keep menus

or ifoedit to 3 dics without keeping menu

i just got back from the club

i explain tomorow

[steptoe]

The way I did it, was to use DVD Decryptor to rip individual episodes, then using TMPGEnc DVD Author, simply create a menu for those episodes
and burn to another DVD-R

Should save the aggrevation of having the original menu complain about not being able to link to the missing epiosdes

Latest version of TMPGenc DVD Author now supports the option to totally remove the annoying chapter menu, so you can just select from the main menu each episode, and it will play it straight away

This way I managed to just squeeze all 12 episodes of Fawlty Towers onto a single DVD. The quality may not be the best, but it suits me as my video tape of it was knackered through overuse !!

[scottvf]

Yes, TMPGEnc DVD Author is the way to go!!! I use it on all my episode dvd's. It's actually the program I use most (It's Great!) I can choose what episode I want to put on what dvd. Also I use it to create a shot movie dvd. I took all the shorts from monsters inc, ice age, ect and put them all on 1 dvd and labeled it Short movies. You can use it just for movie only also and choose to play movie without going to a menu.