VobBlanker - Skip vs. Blank questions

[JPowers]

I learned from a very basic VobBlanker guide how to just blank PGCs. The guide mentioned leaving the VIDEO_TS.VOB alone. There are never any PGCs listed under this, so I never messed with them.

Today I'm backing up U-571. The entire VIDEO_TS.VOB contains trailers and junk, so I decided to right click and try the skip feature, since there is no option to blank. The next VOB was a picture of a flower, so I just blanked the PGC under it as I normally would.

After processing the movie, I played it with Nero Showtime. The first thing I saw was a cut off, half blacked out picture of that flower. I reprocessed the movie with VobBlanker, but this time I used the skip feature on all the VOBs that I didn't want, rather than blanking out their PGCs. Nero Showtime gave me an error message and wouldn't play the second version I processed. VLC media player gave me no problems, there was no flower, and all menus worked.

Is there anything wrong with the method I used? What is the difference between skip and blank?

One more thing, why does the guide say it's important to check the box by use input folder? I always decrypt on the first hard drive, blank to the second, then shrink back to the first one.

Thanks for the help!

[nic2k4]

Never use skip to remove something, the skip function does not fix the VTS. Skip is used to bypass processing, but you have to copy what was skipped to the output folder or your DVD will fail. Skip is mostly for VTS with multiple angles, VOBblanker will automatically skip those.

Saying to leave VIDEO_TS.VOB alone, is oversimplifying things. Typically, the DVD menu is in VIDEO_TS.VOB. You can tell just by the size in the Menu Ini column for VIDEO_TS.VOB. Since it's a menu, you can't just blank it, you have to click on the menu button. Now you can select any part of the menu and blank it.

"One more thing, why does the guide say it's important to check the box by use input folder? I always decrypt on the first hard drive, blank to the second, then shrink back to the first one."
Keep doing it your way, it's the preferred way to maximize speed.

[JPowers]

Saying to leave VIDEO_TS.VOB alone, is oversimplifying things. Typically, the DVD menu is in VIDEO_TS.VOB. You can tell just by the size in the Menu Ini column for VIDEO_TS.VOB. Since it's a menu, you can't just blank it, you have to click on the menu button. Now you can select any part of the menu and blank it.

Thank you so much! That's exactly what I needed to know. Even though there are no menus in this particular VIDEO_TS.VOB, clicking the menu button, then the "language unit" opened up a list of PGCs underneath it that can be viewed and blanked.

"One more thing, why does the guide say it's important to check the box by use input folder? I always decrypt on the first hard drive, blank to the second, then shrink back to the first one."
Keep doing it your way, it's the preferred way to maximize speed.

I thought so. It just made more sense to go back and forth between hard drives and avoid thrashing on the same drive.

Thanks again, you've been helpful!