Authoring DVD's with menus and subtitles?

[cpotoso]

I was trying to back-up some DVD's that have several episodes in them. I wanted to "re-partition" the episodes so that I place 2 rather than 3 episodes per disk (thus avoiding the need to DVDShrink the episodes). So here's what I did:

1) Used DVDShrink re-author mode to take each episode and make an individual DVD structure.

2) Used TMPGEnc DVD Author to create a menu that chooses which episode and sub-menus for the chapters of each episode.

Looks great *BUT THE SUBTITLES WERE LOST*

Anyone knows of a simple tool (preferrably free) to do what I wanted?

Thank you.

[borax]

TMPGEnc DVD Author does not support subtitles.
Freeware able to do it:
Gui for dvdauthor or dvdauthorgui.

[Abond]

I would suggest also GFD or dvdauthorgui, but it is not so simple to get it with subtitles. The simpliest way I can think of is to copy the vob files from DVDShrink output over the vob files created from TDA. After that use Ifoupdate to correct the ifo's of TDA output regarding the ifo's of DVDShrink output. For reference look this guide:
https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=219535
for the Ifoupdate part. So in your case TDA ifo's are "original" and DVDShrink ifo's are "reauthored". Hopefuly it works.

[mikiem]

There's 2 or 3 great guides here at videohelp.com.

*Very* basically, demux your episode vobs, the ones shrink created - I recomend with Pgcdemux. You might have more then one sub file per track -- if so use Ifoedit to check what does what in Shrink vobs (you can figure it out from guides, and will often see one file for normal, separate for letterboxing).

Reccomend added step of chapter-x-tractor to edit celltimes.txt from Pgcdemux (often xtra cell times listed that can be filtered out).

Using free version of muxman, create dvd layout using m2v, ac3, & sub files, importing edited celltimes.txt for chapters. Replace existing vob's in your DVD author created layout using vob blanker. Use Ifoedit to turn subs on in this new layout.

Might sound like a lot, but really only takes about 1/2 an hour or so.

[cpotoso]

Hi to all, thanks for the replies!

All of this seems quite complicated... Why does one need to demux the files, then eventually "mux" them again... The VOBS are ready, the only needed thing is the links to the proper parts of the VOBS... Shouldn't this be easier???

[borax]

First of all, it is NOT easy...
It is possible to use your 'ready' vob files directly in GFD and just create the menus (chapter/audio/subtitle) and reauthor. But you will need some knowledge about the whole process (as Abond mentioned).
1. The vob files must be dvdauthor compliant:
A) contain nav. packs
B) continious SCR
C) one file per full movie (and vob renamed to mpg)

A is quite sure (given the 'history' of your vob files)
B is probably (as I assume your movies have no multi angles)
C is unlikely...

To achieve C you can simply rename the vob to mpg if there is only one vob file for this episode. If there are two (very likely) or more you need to 'copy' them together. This can be done from a command line prompt ('DOS-Window') with a command like this:
copy /b VTS_01_1.VOB + VTS_01_2.VOB movie1.mpg

Then you may add the movies (movie1.mpg, movie2.mpg...) into GFD.

The remaining problem are the colors of the subtitles. The vob files contain only pointers to a palette which is inside the ifo files. Therefore you need to get this information from the ifo files of your source DVDs. You may import the palette from the VTSXXX.ifo files for each movie seperately within GFD.

[Abond]

Shouldn't this be easier???

Yes, of course. Do not change the number of episodes per disc, use DVDShrink - full backup -> ready.
If you want to change the structure of the DVDs by re-authoring it is not easier - you simly are making NEW DVDs.

[mikiem]

DVD R DL

[cpotoso]

Well, I ended up not changing the number of episodes per DVD (were 3 x 1 hour). However, this implied doing a compression to about 66%. Used deep analysis and error compensation on DVDShring and the results were quite good. Would have preferred to put 2 per DVD and no compression, though...