Making a compilation of DVD-clips.

[MheAd]

Hi,

What is the best and easiest DVD (re)authoring tool when it comes to creating of simple menues and creating of compilations from different DVD sources?

What I want to do is to put several different DVD-movies onto a single disc. This is very easily done in TMPGEnc DVD Author as long as the resolution of all sources is the same. If for instance a movie is 702x480 while the other one is x576, they cannot be put together.

Is there a simple tool that CAN add these together?

Thanks in advance!

[MOVIEGEEK]

DVDLab

[MheAd]

Thanks, I'll check it out.
Although I maybe should have highlighted the word SIMPLE tool

[Alex_ander]

If you have x480 and x576 the problem is not aspect ratio but NTSC+PAL that shouldn't be on the same disc. If you have differently encoded videos of the same system (e.g. NTSC 3:4 and 16:9), it is a correct case and TDA will accept them as separate tracks (select 'new track' after importing the first video).
For easiest and automized menu creating use TDAPro2.1 (versions 1.5-1.6 have serious limitations in editing templates). With other software you'll spend much time on manually linking your buttons and testing.

[Bjs]

Tools : dvdauthorgui + pgcedit .

Create a basic dvd from one of your titles in dvdauthorgui .

Add enough buttons and menus as required for the total number of title's you will be adding .
Connect all buttons for clips to title 1
Connect all buttons related to menu's , to associated menu's .
Author to folder .

Open this dvd in pgcedit .

Import other title's .
Edit menu navigation commands .
Buttons related to X title should now point and connect to their correct title .
Buttons for menu to menu nav stay put .

Should you want "at end of clip" to return to menu .
You need to go to each title and use "post" command area , and point it to appropriate vgm dummy menu ... not first play ... then from these , connect to appropriate menu .

This takes some fiddling about if you have never used it before ... but commands highlight in colours to give indication if it will work ... red = no , pink = maybe , blue = yes , yellow and white are secondary ... and in many case's , only used where stacking the commands' to generate different results depending on what was passed before it .

Take a spin in the first 5 pages in the guide section will turn up some guides by myself where I used pgcedit ... you can get some pointers and hints from those .

------------------------

Pgcedit will allow the mixing of pal and nstc in a dvd compilation ... once the navigation plays back on the pc as expected ... it should be considered quite safe to burn to dvd .

[Alex_ander]

It's safe since not mentioned in FBI's greeting screen .

Quote (http://www.digitalfaq.com/dvdguides/authorburn/intro.htm):

The video must also be all PAL or all NTSC. Multi-format discs are not supported, and most authoring applications prevent this MISTAKE from being made. DVD players do not support playback of such discs.

[MheAd]

Thanks a lot guys. I pretty much know how I'll do it from here.
TMPGEnc DVD Author does allow me to do what I wanted to do although I did a small miss which caused me not noticing that feature

I've upgraded now to the most recent version (been using 1.6) and now everything is much more clear to me. Thanks a lot... I don't think that further assistance will be needed on this subject.

[guns1inger]

The video must also be all PAL or all NTSC. Multi-format discs are not supported, and most authoring applications prevent this MISTAKE from being made. DVD players do not support playback of such discs.

This statement needs to be clarified. Mixed format discs are outside the DVD spec, and therefore technically non-compliant. As most NTSC players support only NTSC playback, most NTSC players will not successfully play mixed format discs.

On the otherhand, most PAL players do support NTSC playback, and will in fact play these discs, even though they are not compliant within the DVD spec.

While I do not do this as a matter of course, I have created a mixed format test disc, and have found it to play happily in over 90% of PAL standalone players tested, including players from major brands.

As with any non-standard, non-compliant technique, there are no guarantees that the disc will play in any given player, and it is not recommended that you use this method. But it is simply not true to say that standalone players will not play such a disc.