Looking for easy tool to get length of a DVD

[lcluster]

I am looking for a software tool to quickly get the length of a program on a dvd. I work for a public access cable tv station. We are often given DVD's to show on the air and we need to figure out how long it is for scheduling purposes. The TV station scheduling software requires that we put in the running time of the DVD so that the next DVD (or Community Billboard) can be queued up.

Older versions of Windows Media Player used to quickly do this by showing the playing length of the dvd program. Currently we try and fast forward (skip) through the DVD to get to the end and note the length but this takes time. If we create the program dvd in house we use the DVD creation software (Pinnacle or Sony Vegas) to get the length. I have tried multiple dvd tools but they only seem to give the physical size of the files on the dvd not the run length of the program.

Thank you for any suggestions of tools that I should try.
Lance

[tinker]

Try Bitrate wiever. You need DVD in drive to see it, but gives you Bitrate graph and length of the main feature.
http://www.tecoltd.com/bitratev.htm
Other software is GSpot.

[jman98]

IFOEdit, which is 100% free, can give you this info, but it's not real easy for newbies to use. If you know how to find the main movie IFO, you can open it and it will tell you the length of the movie. I'll spare you a very long explanation that might go over your head, but basically I'd recommend learning how to do this in IFOEdit. I can think of another tool that is easier, but it has a big drawback - on badly authored DVDs it can be fooled and return invalid time information. IFOEdit will always give you a true answer, even if it's not as easy to use at first.

[rkr1958]

Vobblanker, DVDShrink ... while these tools are used for other reasons they can be used to get the playing times for all titles on a DVD.

[manono]

If you don't feel like putting the entire DVD onto the hard drive, then DVD Bit Rate Viewer (different from Bitrate Viewer) can do it. Just put the DVD in the drive and open DVD Bit Rate Viewer. Its main function is to give you a bitrate graph, but it also shows the length of the longest title by default, and you can get the lengths of the others using the drop-down box.

DVD Decrypter in IFO Mode can also show you the lengths of the various PGCs with the DVD in the drive.

When playing the DVD, PowerDVD with the OSD turned on shows you the length of the title being played at the moment.