Duplicate Tracks on some DVD's

[rweaver7777]

Hi, I'm new here...

On some of my commercial DVD's (Foyle's War is one example), there are two tracks the same length. Why are there two the same? Is one interlaced and one not?

I don't have a lot of experience with video tools so don't know how to go about figuring this out.

I also searched the forum for an answer but didn't see one. Post a link if there is a thread already on this.

Thanks,
Rick Weaver

[rweaver7777]

PS these are the main programs on the disks, not any "extra" content. Two seemingly identical tracks of the "main event"... Sorry I didn't make that real clear.

[davexnet]

How did you identify this? Did you look at the contents of the Video_TS folder in
Windows Explorer? What does it show?

[rweaver7777]

This was in the GUI in the ripping software. However, when I look at the Video_TS directory there are 4 files with the episode, 3 at 1GB and one slightly less.

Is it a bug in the ripping software that it thinks there are two tracks? That's what it seems like to me. Using WinX DVD Ripper Pro.

Thanks for the steer...

[johnmeyer]

I don't use that program, but now that I know that you were seeing this in the ripper, I've seen that many times before. It is really common, for instance, in the old DVD Shrink. What happens is that the DVD standard let the same video content be accessed in multiple different ways. So, the movie may only be on there one time, but the navigation logic makes it look like there are multiple copies of the same thing. A trivial example is a playlist where you can have the movie and all the extras play as one entity, but also have each of them available separately.

One way to know that this is happening is that if you add up the disc space required for all these "files," you will get a size quite a bit bigger than if you get a reading in Windows Explorer of how much space all the files consume.

[october262]

Hi, I'm new here...

On some of my commercial DVD's (Foyle's War is one example), there are two tracks the same length. Why are there two the same? Is one interlaced and one not?

I don't have a lot of experience with video tools so don't know how to go about figuring this out.

I also searched the forum for an answer but didn't see one. Post a link if there is a thread already on this.

Thanks,
Rick Weaver

does the disc have a rated & unrated version of the film ??
the unrated version would be slightly longer.

[hech54]

Normally when you see something like this(it happens often), it's also a mathematically impossibility that there are two versions of the movie on one DVD.
Common sense.

[lingyi]

This was in the GUI in the ripping software. However, when I look at the Video_TS directory there are 4 files with the episode, 3 at 1GB and one slightly less.

Is it a bug in the ripping software that it thinks there are two tracks? That's what it seems like to me. Using WinX DVD Ripper Pro.

Thanks for the steer...

What you're in the folder is normal. read What is DVD here: https://www.videohelp.com/dvd#tech to learn more about a Video DVD structure. Each .vob can be 1GB max, so your disc is just shy of 4GB, pretty normal for a single-layer DVD. As johnmeyer stated, it's likely just a glitch because of the way the menu is structured. I've seen the same thing myself with DVDShrink.

FYI, there are some newer copy protection schemes that causes ripping software to report multiple files that are much larger than the capacity of the actual DVD. As long as you you use currently updated software like DVDFab or DVD Passkey (both of which have free trials, that after the trial period still work, but not with the latest copy protection updates). If your discs are older, DVD Decrypter works on most discs and if they're not from the US, they likely don't have copy protection and you can use DVDShrink to rip.

[lingyi]

Normally when you see something like this(it happens often), it's also a mathematically impossibility that there are two versions of the movie on one DVD.
Common sense.

IIRC, didn't some early DVDs use branching to allow both R and unrated or theatrical / uncut versions on the same disc? Of course branching is never visually seamless and is why it went away.

[manono]

It's almost certainly as johnmeyer described. Foyle's War is a television series. There's probably a Playall button that leads to one version playing all the episodes one after the other. Then you'll also be able to select the individual episodes, which leads to the other, perhaps in a separate menu. This is all with only one set of VOB files on the DVD. Much ado about nothing.

[hech54]

Normally when you see something like this(it happens often), it's also a mathematically impossibility that there are two versions of the movie on one DVD.
Common sense.

IIRC, didn't some early DVDs use branching to allow both R and unrated or theatrical / uncut versions on the same disc? Of course branching is never visually seamless and is why it went away.

What I mean is....for example if you have a 5.5gb movie listed twice on a DVD(dual layer)...it is mathematically impossible for it to be on that DVD two times.
This illusion happens quite often in decrypting software. It has nothing to do with authoring techniques or menu options.

[cornemuse]

I've had dvd (9) movies which show up as having 70+ gigs of data on them. slysoft (& redfox) generally take longer to find which titleset is "real", & not a 'ghost'. also, they have (sometimes) a different angle shot of the film, but they're usually diff sizes. R rated usually is larger than unrated, but if unrated is nc-17, R rated is usually smaller, its what they edit out to get different ratings.