Combining several short DVDs?

[terrypin]

I've made several 5-15 minute DVDs from family holiday slides, mainly using MemoriesOnTV. Each is on a separate DVD disc, with a single menu containing merely a title and a single 'Play DVD' button. They all work fine. But, without re-rendering all of them again (and thus lowering quality), how can I put them all on a single DVD, with a new menu please? As well as the discs, I have also kept the individual Video_TS folders.

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Terry, West Sussex, UK

[guns1inger]

tmpgenc DVD author

[SingSing]

tmpgenc DVD author

Or you build a no-menu multiple tracks DVD, with the free tool DVDshrink 3.2.

[guns1inger]

how can I put them all on a single DVD, with a new menu please?

[SingSing]

Update :

tmpgenc DVD author

[terrypin]

OK, thanks both. I have TDA - just haven't yet learned how to use it!

I wonder if NeroVision Express could also do it; I'll give it a try, as I'm already reasonably comfortable withe the NVE interface.

When I do get into it with TDA, can I expect it to be straightforward? And fast?

I've been looking around for a 'beginners guide' on TDA, but so far in vain. I know there are some on-line tutorials, but I'd really like to curl up somewhere with a real book.

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Terry, West Sussex, UK

[guns1inger]

NeroVision will re-encode everything, lowering the quality and basically making a dog's breakfast of it.

In TDA, use the Add Video button, locate the VOBs for each DVD and load them up. You can put them on the same of different tracks, create menus, and author WITHOUT re-encoding.

NeroVision should only be used to needlessly use up space on a hard drive, not to process video.

[Scorpion King]

VOB2MPG is easy.

[terrypin]

Gunslinger Thanks. I'm working up to having a crack at TDA very soon. I've also emailed Ner asking them why NVE needlessly re-encodes. I'll report back if I get a reply.

Scorpion King: Thanks. But unless I'm mistaken, that just allows me to create a set of single MPG files from each Video_TS folder, yes? How would that achieve what I described?

I installed VOB2MPG and tried it with a sample folder (a 7 min DVD). It made me an MPG size 301,310 KB, which played fine in WMP9. But so did the original 'main' VOB (the second of the two in the Video_TS folder) after I merely changed its extension from VOB to MPG. Its size though was slightly different: 301,846 KB. Why is that please? Is it legitimate to do it that VERY simple way?

But, as I said, that still leaves me with a set of MPG files, not a new DVD with a new menu.


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Terry, West Sussex, UK

[guns1inger]

VOBs are not just renamed mpegs. They are a container format that can contain video(multiple tracks), audio (multiple tracks), subtitle subpictures (multiple tracks), BOV subpics and navigation markers. VOB2Mpg demuxes the video from VOBs as a single, joined video/audio stream It ignores things that cannot be stored in the audio stream but that are in the VOB. Hence the results are slightly smaller than simply renaming the VOB to .mpg.

While some here advocate simply renaming, the results are not 100% mpg, and some authoring software will, rightly, refuse to use it, or may produce unpredictable results.

TDA can import the contents of existing VOBs and reauthor from them, so you can use your existing structures as they stand. Or, you can use VOB2mpg on each folder, then use the resulting mpg files in TDA. Both are valid approaches.

[terrypin]

Thanks guns1inger, understood. (Small differences can be significant. Such as my misspelling your username last time - sorry!)

One of the concepts I'm having trouble grasping is this demuxing and remuxing stuff, and these strange file types ac3 and mp2. While experimenting last night I found myself with an ac3 after applying the 'demux' button in VirtualDubMod. It wouldn't play, but as soon as I tried changing its extension to MP3, it did! So why not call it an MP3 to start with? Presumably mp2 is an MPG alias?

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Terry, West Sussex, UK

[guns1inger]

AC3 is dolby digital encoded. It is not MP3, however it seems you may have been missing a file association for it to a program that can play it if it is miss-named as an MP3 file.

MP3 is a different (and lower quality) encoding method.

MP2 is mpeg1-layer2 audio encoding.

AC3, PCM (uncompressed), MPA (MP2) and DTS are valid for DVD authoring. MP3 is not.

Video comes is a variety of ways, but the basics are either elementary streams, where the video and audio are seperate, and Programme Streams, where they are combined. Progframme Streams have the video and audio multi-plexed together (Muxed). To get seperate streams, they must be De-Mulitplexed, or Demuxed. (To all the pedants : yes, this is simplified, but it will do for the moment)

[terrypin]

Great, thank you. That's beginning to get a bit clearer. I really only learn properly by 'doing', so I'll experiment a while and come back if I hit any insurmountable obstacles.

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Terry, West Sussex, UK