Swap out video without changing anything else on a DVD-R?

[bizzybody]

A client has presented me with a bit of a puzzle. He had a DVD made and burnt to a single layer disc.

Now he wants the same thing, but in higher quality on a dual layer disc.

The problem is he doesn't have the original project file (doesn't know what software was used to author it anyway) nor does he have the graphics etc used for the menus.

He does have the original source video, which can be re-encoded at a higher bitrate to fill out the dual layer DVD-R.

If I'd done the original, it wouldn't be a problem, I'd just re-do the video and re-author the disc.

Is there a way to swap out the video while keeping all the menus and chapter points? The content and length will be identical, but about 2x better looking.

Sort of like replacing the sheets on a bed without the person sleeping in it knowing anything's been done.

Any software required to do it won't be a problem because I can see this being useful in the future for other DVDs I've done on single layer I may want to upgrade to dual layer.

[Noahtuck]

I've done it a few times...

GUIDE:
http://www.digital-digest.com/articles/Simplistic_Guide_for_Replacing_DVD_Streams_page1.html

The tools needed to do it can be found here also and it list's what tools to use.

After doing it, it's actually easier than it seem's the first time.

[toliman]

well, the idea is great, but the problem exists that the Chapters don't always conform to the time position, it depends on how the IFO files are authored/'set'. also, the metaphor would be slightly better if you wer replacing the bed, but keeping the sheets and pillows from the old bed, etc. i guess.

ideally, you would just put your upgraded video into a VTS_02_1/2/3/4/5/6.vob series, i.e. split along the 1gb mark, and leave all the IFO/VTS info intact from your original content. it's how people used to put blueray/avchd menus together before the advent of authoring tools. and still do because of the generally inadequate authoring tools.

i.e. step 1 copy the files from your original DVD into a temp folder.

step 2 create a brand new "blank" DVD with the upgraded footage, but with a similar series/title (for the VTS numbering) layout, because it will also encode the Video into the proper size/format/layout for DVD. if possible, stick to emulating the original DVD's menu layout, i.e. main title pages and subpages, i.e. dont worry about chapters, etc. it just keeps the numbering similar for the VTS files later.

step 3 take the VTS_??_?.VOB assets without the new IFO/BUP (perhaps delete the VTS_??_?.IFO/BUP if you're not going to use it) and copy the VOB files over the original DVD's contents into the temp directory. as long as the video/audio in the .vobs is detectably similar, no worries, the DVD player will accept the change. if you have more than one VTS, i.e. VTS_02, VTS_03, etc... erm, guess by size which one is the one you want to replace. as it's in a temporary folder, you can always overwrite the VTS files with the right VTS files.

step 4, open up the temp folder in a software DVD player and test that the menus work and the content is working. if the menu links to the wrong video, go back a step and replace it. also test the first, middle and last chapters from the remote's chapter previous/next, and from the chapter menus, will take you to separate areas of the film. if you never use chapters, you can live with it, i figure.

now if something goes really wrong, you'll need to get out IFO editor or an equivalent to troubleshoot the issue, which has the learning curve of oh, calculus to diagnose the PGC/VTS issues. i.e. you would want to change the VTS information in the VIDEO_TS.IFO and the VTS_01_1.IFO files to match up so the buttons will play the content properly, and to set the chapter markers to the chapter buttons, etc. etc.

so, perhaps if somewhere along step 4 fails, it might be quicker just to give up (as you'd have to copy the relevant data from the 'new' VTS IFOs and replace the old IFOs, or modify the new VTS IFO's to use the VTS and PGC's from the old menus, etc. depending on the complexity of the menus or how familiar/detailed you wanted to get with menu/button/chapter code in the video_ts.ifo)

[Noahtuck]

Bahh!!!

I've done it with Muxman, PgcDemux, PgcEdit, VobBlanker & they came out fine.

Replaced Video & Audio & just Audio.

Just for the first thing, he said he was using the original source video and it would be the same length.

[toliman]

i tended to think from the request, that there was more than one video stream title to contend with.

i.e. when i think of home-created DVD's from handycams or something, , theres more than one title or it's broken into sections with different menus, etc. i.e. perhaps 3-4 VTSs or more.

also, original content != original encode. the video will be different, as will the subpictures, etc.
by creating a new DVD using the newer material, you can create compliant assets to replace the old ones, and still use the steps from the replacing streams guide.

at that point, remuxing several assets, making sure assets are compliant, etc is a chore, and tools like vobblanker/demux/muxman are fine for taking things apart, not so much for reattaching.

if it's just the one title, yea, follow the guide, break the DVD into assets by demuxing, then use mux/pgcedit/blanker, etc to insert the new video into the old DVD.

[bizzybody]

I took a look at the contents of the disc, each video clip is neatly self-contained with its own set of .IFO, .BUP and .VOB files, with the main video being the highest numbered.

So I should try re-encoding the original video, authoring it as a single video DVD without menus, then rename those files to overwrite the ones I've identified as the main video?

It's in three .VOBs of 1047552 KB and one 392316 KB. Depending on how the menu files are done, the chapter points might just work, eh?

If not, I could find a tool to extract the chapter info then do up new menus from scratch and use that data to set the chapter points.

Edit: All I want to replace is the main video, the menus and other little video clips will be OK at the existing quality. Can't do anything with that anyway since the original files used for them aren't available. There's no subtitles or multiple audio streams to deal with either.

[toliman]

if it's a simple job, just replace the VTS_01_1/2/3/4. VOB files with the newer ones. and leave the other VTS files for another day.

if you want more authority/security in it working, demux the old DVD and the new DVD (into their ac3/mp2/m2v assets), again, just keeping to the main movie (easier) for both old and new DVD content. ideally, do one VTS at a time, it makes things so much easier to figure out.

follow the steps from the guide, use the new audio & video instead of the old audio/video in the muxman step , and replace the VTS info in vobblanker for anything you altered in/via muxman as the guide shows.

even just doing the main video/movie part should be enough to fill a DVD9 depending on the bitrate of the original feature, but you should probably stick to one VTS at a time, if you're tasked to replace all the video, it will be time-consuming, redoing the main video will be fine for most people, even just doing a progressive encode to remove the interlacing makes enough of a difference to improve perceived quality.

[bizzybody]

I think it's the interlacing that prompted this request. I played the disc on my widescreen LCD with progressive play DVD player and it looks horrible. I didn;t try turing off progressive scan output.

I bet the client recently bought a new 1080p HDTV and discovered that 480i DVD looks ghastly on it.

[bizzybody]

I re-encoded the video then made a menu-less DVD fileset. Next I renamed the VOBs to replace the originals. First I left the original IFO file. The chapter buttons sort of worked, they'd jump to locations close to the originals but only a few frames would play then it'd stop. (Played with WMP11 on XP SP3))

Next I tried replacing the IFO with the new one, all the chapter buttons went the the beginning of the video but it'd play normally.

The main video is at the end, number 16. VTS_16_0.VOB is only 156K in the original. I can get the chapter settings from the original with IFOedit, how do I copy that to the new VTS_16 set and fix it so it works correctly?

Perhaps if I created a menu with the same number of chapters and set them to the exact same frame numbers then just 'transplanted' the IFO and VOBs?

I won't have to go to a dual layer, the original has only three 1gig VOBs and one .4gig VOB for the main video, my fresh encoding came out to just a squeak under 4gig but looks a whole lot better.

List of the original files.

05/01/2004 12:12 AM 26,624 VIDEO_TS.BUP
05/01/2004 12:12 AM 26,624 VIDEO_TS.IFO
05/01/2004 12:13 AM 24,576 VTS_01_0.BUP
05/01/2004 12:12 AM 24,576 VTS_01_0.IFO
05/01/2004 12:12 AM 10,010,624 VTS_01_0.VOB
05/01/2004 12:13 AM 38,567,936 VTS_01_1.VOB
05/01/2004 12:13 AM 18,432 VTS_02_0.BUP
05/01/2004 12:13 AM 18,432 VTS_02_0.IFO
05/01/2004 12:13 AM 159,744 VTS_02_0.VOB
05/01/2004 12:13 AM 2,408,448 VTS_02_1.VOB
05/01/2004 12:16 AM 18,432 VTS_03_0.BUP
05/01/2004 12:13 AM 18,432 VTS_03_0.IFO
05/01/2004 12:13 AM 159,744 VTS_03_0.VOB
05/01/2004 12:16 AM 168,562,688 VTS_03_1.VOB
05/01/2004 12:16 AM 18,432 VTS_04_0.BUP
05/01/2004 12:16 AM 18,432 VTS_04_0.IFO
05/01/2004 12:16 AM 159,744 VTS_04_0.VOB
05/01/2004 12:16 AM 2,404,352 VTS_04_1.VOB
05/01/2004 12:16 AM 18,432 VTS_05_0.BUP
05/01/2004 12:16 AM 18,432 VTS_05_0.IFO
05/01/2004 12:16 AM 159,744 VTS_05_0.VOB
05/01/2004 12:16 AM 2,439,168 VTS_05_1.VOB
05/01/2004 12:16 AM 18,432 VTS_06_0.BUP
05/01/2004 12:16 AM 18,432 VTS_06_0.IFO
05/01/2004 12:16 AM 159,744 VTS_06_0.VOB
05/01/2004 12:16 AM 2,422,784 VTS_06_1.VOB
05/01/2004 12:16 AM 67,584 VTS_07_0.BUP
05/01/2004 12:16 AM 67,584 VTS_07_0.IFO
05/01/2004 12:16 AM 159,744 VTS_07_0.VOB
05/01/2004 12:17 AM 18,432 VTS_08_0.BUP
05/01/2004 12:16 AM 18,432 VTS_08_0.IFO
05/01/2004 12:17 AM 159,744 VTS_08_0.VOB
05/01/2004 12:17 AM 2,408,448 VTS_08_1.VOB
05/01/2004 12:17 AM 18,432 VTS_09_0.BUP
05/01/2004 12:17 AM 18,432 VTS_09_0.IFO
05/01/2004 12:17 AM 159,744 VTS_09_0.VOB
05/01/2004 12:17 AM 2,404,352 VTS_09_1.VOB
05/01/2004 12:17 AM 18,432 VTS_10_0.BUP
05/01/2004 12:17 AM 18,432 VTS_10_0.IFO
05/01/2004 12:17 AM 159,744 VTS_10_0.VOB
05/01/2004 12:17 AM 2,439,168 VTS_10_1.VOB
05/01/2004 12:17 AM 18,432 VTS_11_0.BUP
05/01/2004 12:17 AM 18,432 VTS_11_0.IFO
05/01/2004 12:17 AM 159,744 VTS_11_0.VOB
05/01/2004 12:17 AM 2,422,784 VTS_11_1.VOB
05/01/2004 12:17 AM 18,432 VTS_12_0.BUP
05/01/2004 12:17 AM 18,432 VTS_12_0.IFO
05/01/2004 12:17 AM 159,744 VTS_12_0.VOB
05/01/2004 12:17 AM 38,557,696 VTS_12_1.VOB
05/01/2004 12:21 AM 18,432 VTS_13_0.BUP
05/01/2004 12:17 AM 18,432 VTS_13_0.IFO
05/01/2004 12:18 AM 159,744 VTS_13_0.VOB
05/01/2004 12:21 AM 168,562,688 VTS_13_1.VOB
05/01/2004 12:22 AM 18,432 VTS_14_0.BUP
05/01/2004 12:21 AM 18,432 VTS_14_0.IFO
05/01/2004 12:21 AM 159,744 VTS_14_0.VOB
05/01/2004 12:22 AM 84,094,976 VTS_14_1.VOB
05/01/2004 12:24 AM 18,432 VTS_15_0.BUP
05/01/2004 12:22 AM 18,432 VTS_15_0.IFO
05/01/2004 12:22 AM 159,744 VTS_15_0.VOB
05/01/2004 12:24 AM 84,092,928 VTS_15_1.VOB
05/01/2004 01:22 AM 67,584 VTS_16_0.BUP
05/01/2004 12:24 AM 67,584 VTS_16_0.IFO
05/01/2004 12:24 AM 159,744 VTS_16_0.VOB
05/01/2004 12:42 AM 1,072,693,248 VTS_16_1.VOB
05/01/2004 01:00 AM 1,072,693,248 VTS_16_2.VOB
05/01/2004 01:17 AM 1,072,693,248 VTS_16_3.VOB
05/01/2004 01:21 AM 401,731,584 VTS_16_4.VOB

[guns1inger]

How did you create the new IFO files ? I still find the aging IFOEdit does a good job at creating new IFO files for an existing disc structure.

[bizzybody]

I encoded the original video to MPEG using TMPEGenc 4.0 then used TMPGEnc DVD Author 3.1 to create a menu-less DVD project. I've also had a look in things with PGCedit.

I'm going to read this and see if there is something there that will help me figure this out.

[guns1inger]

Take a copy of the original IFO Files, then use IFOEdit's Create IFO Files function to create a new set.

[Pinstripes23]

I'm going to read this and see if there is something there that will help me figure this out.

What is there to figure out? Noahtuck's suggestion and link to the demonstration is EXACTLY how I would do it and have been doing it for years now.

1) Use pgcdemux on the original vts 16 ifo file.
2) Use muxman to mux the new video with the old audio, celltimes, etc.
3) Use vobblanker to open the old DVD. Go down to vts 16 title and replace the old pgc with the new one you muxed with muxman.
4) Output to new files

well, the idea is great, but the problem exists that the Chapters don't always conform to the time position, it depends on how the IFO files are authored/'set'.

How so? Celltimes are from the original dvd and will be used with the new video during the muxman step. The worst that should happen is it's a few frames off as muxman will just place the chapter point to the closest I frame available.

at that point, remuxing several assets, making sure assets are compliant, etc is a chore, and tools like vobblanker/demux/muxman are fine for taking things apart, not so much for reattaching.

if it's just the one title, yea, follow the guide, break the DVD into assets by demuxing, then use mux/pgcedit/blanker, etc to insert the new video into the old DVD.

I have used this method for more than just replacing one title. You can replace as many titles as you want. And to be honest you can replace just about anything on a DVD structure down to the cell, using this method. And with the help of pgcedit, can be used to replace menus.

[bizzybody]

I'm making progress... in finding out how screwed up this DVD is! The main video is on it twice, packed end to end in the same VOB 16 set. The short clips are each on there twice as well, but each in their own VOB set. There's two sets of almost identical menus too, one set works for everything, the other has a main video chapter menu that has buttons which do nothing. The code is there but nothing happens when they're selected.

PGCedit is the only tool I have currently that will display things big enough to read the text on the menu screens. I figured I could select and delete the screens I won't need, but instead of just deleting some and rebuilding the VOB, it deleted the whole VOB. The other freeware I've tried has tiny images that it's impossible to read the small text on, which is all the difference there is between the 'keep' menus and the 'don't keep' ones.

It looks like whomever put this together intended to have two different versions of the main video, but got two [i]identical[/u] versions of it instead, then effed up the chapter menu for the second one. 'Tis no wonder every program complains about so many problems and errors- yet it will play on a standalone player- with the exception of the one chapter menu.

I can't figure out how to 'chop off' the un-needed second half of title 16, which is identical to the first half. I tried a custom job with DVD Fab, which only sees the main video once, but it's output still included both copies. (This is also one of those apps with the teeny-tiny video preview instead of having something big enough to see.)

Is there a commercial program that can import this DVD as-is and will show me the menu screens- with the video clips they link to, allow me the select what I want to keep, what I want to delete, and can remove the redundant second copy of the main video- then rebuild it all so it'll work? With the redundant stuff gone it'll probably be around 2 gig for the whole thing. Then I can re-encode the original video (again) to even better quality.

THEN I should be able to swap in the new VOB set for the main video while keeping AND EDITING the old chapter points to put them at the same spots, if they don't come out close enough.

Will DVD Lab Pro do this? I'll happily spend money on the software, if it will do what I want to do. Tired of fiddling around with freeware that likely can be used to fix this mess, but requires one to know all the 'arcane' stuff about the underpinnings of DVD code and programming. (I used to program, but to me it was work, not fun. Been probably 15 years or more since I did any, don't feel like going back to anything like it.)

I need the "WIMP" software. Windows Icons Mouse Pointer, for the folks who didn't start out with computers 25+ years ago like me. I've gotten spoiled by GUIs and I don't care!

Thanks for all the help so far!

[Pinstripes23]

Is there a commercial program that can import this DVD as-is and will show me the menu screens- with the video clips they link to, allow me the select what I want to keep, what I want to delete, and can remove the redundant second copy of the main video- then rebuild it all so it'll work? With the redundant stuff gone it'll probably be around 2 gig for the whole thing. Then I can re-encode the original video (again) to even better quality.

Probably dvdremake pro can do it, and may show to be easier for you. But with the combination of pgcedit and vobblanker you can achieve the same thing. With pgcedit use the trace mode to trace throughout the whole dvd, and delete what you don't want. Then use vobblanker to output the new dvd changes.

[manono]

I can't figure out how to 'chop off' the un-needed second half of title 16, which is identical to the first half.

Use the Prev/Cut button of VobBlanker to lose what you don't want and then process. Here's a guide:

http://jsoto.posunplugged.com/guides/VobBlanker/prevcut/index.php

PGCEdit can remove any unreferenced material (as can FixVTS) by going PGC->Delete Uncalled Titlesets/PGCs.

Use Muxman for the authoring and forget TMPGEnc DVD Author 3.1. Muxman uses the already created Celltimes.txt to recreate the chapters (File->Import Chapter) in more-or-less the same place as originally.

Even with a messed up DVD what you're trying to do is pretty simple, if you follow the instructions in Noahtuck's link, or Pinstripes23's more succinct instructions. All toliman did was to confuse the issue. And as Pinstripes23 mentioned in the previous post, using PGCEdit's Trace function can teach you about the structure and what's used and what's not, making it easy to get rid of the extraneous material.

[bizzybody]

I decided to rip the thing apart with MenuEdit (to export the menu stills) and VOBrator to get just the bits I wanted to keep and have rebuilt it from scratch with DVD-Lab Pro. I'm going to have it encode to MPEG from the original video.

This way there is no chance of having anything left over to make a mess of it.

I tried some other apps that are supposed to be able to open a compiled DVD and change stuff, but this disc is so effed up they griped about errors and refused to touch it. (Grrrrr! Fixing errors are one of the main reasons one would want to use such a program. If the DVD was already perfect why would it need edited?!)

So I'm almost ready to have it compile things, except I haven't figured out how to put audio on a still menu.