Combining Episode Discs To One Disc

Hi All,

I have a "complete season" DVD box set, and it comes with 5 discs. The first 4 discs have 3 episodes, and the 5th disc has only one episode and a load of extras - which I don't want on the backup. So far, I've done a simple rip, shrink & burn with the first 3 discs - no problems.

What I want to do for the 4th and 5th discs is to retain the menus from the 4th disc, and edit the "Play Episodes" menu from the 4th disc to include a link to the sole episode from the 5th disc - including the sole episode on the same disc as the episodes from the 4th disc. Naturally, the "Play All" option from the main menu needs to do just that - play all 4 episodes.

I've done my research and figured that DVDRemake Pro (I already have v3.1) seems like the tool for the job. I also tried PGCEdit (v0.6.1 - current latest version), and reckon that that might do the job too - but DVDRemake Pro looks better suited.

I couldn't find any threads that addressed the same as what I want to do, but I found this guide:

www.videohelp.com/guides.php?guideid=646#646

...and followed it, but kinda got lost along the way. My problem was that I didn't understand the reason behind some of the steps, and so wasn't sure how to apply them to my situation - i.e. a different DVD with different title sets etc.

My plan was to use the guide above to combine the title sets, then remove all unwanted material (extras, language selection menus etc.) - either DVDRemake Pro or VOBBLanker, and then shrink (including removing unwanted subs and audio tracks) with DVDShrink.


So, can anyone provide any help on how to take episodes from one disc, an episode from another disc, and combine them to a single disc with the menus from the first disc linking correctly?

Thanks.

Hi MackemX,

Thanks for the info - I hadn't thought of that approach. I'll give it a go and have a tinker to see how I get on...

Although I don't know the actual commands, I'm pretty quick on picking things like this up so I'm happy to give it a go...

I'll let you know how I get on. Cheers.

Originally Posted by MackemX

I hadn't thought of that approach until 10 minutes ago either, you just pushed me into it .

"Necessity is the mother of all inventions" - I guess you could expand that to original ideas too...

Originally Posted by MackemX

let me know how you get on anyway as I'd like to see it work

Will do. Thanks again.

Originally Posted by daamon

Originally Posted by MackemX

let me know how you get on anyway as I'd like to see it work

Will do. Thanks again.

Hi MackemX,

Well, I gave it a go - I combined the two projects. I even substituted the default "DVDRemake" 2-title menu with one that was suitable from the episodic DVD - moving and resizing the buttons too.

But, I can't export the finished article (as it's the trial I've got) to see if / how it works. It'd be useful if there was a way to preview the finished work.

Is there any other software out there that will do a similar job?

Ah - Found it. You're talking about the "Export Test DVD"?

I'll try that...

I see what you mean by 15 seconds of each block.

Looks like it'll work a treat - I haven't gone into the detail of trying to re-arrange links etc. That's for when I have more time and it's not 10pm...

Also, I gotta figure out now if US$45 is worth it vs how often I'll use it...

Hi MackemX,

Yeah - There's "full export" and a "test export" options. The test export is disabled but, from reading around, it seems the full export in the trial version works the same as the test export in the full version - i.e. 15 seconds for each block.

I had a quick dabble last night, but will try your full suggestion (merge and tweak) and report back.

Originally Posted by MackemX

you could try other tools and methods but for me in the past it's not worth the hassle. I've said plenty of times that the time involved with customising DVD's soon adds up and 'free' time itself has a $ value

Your absolutely right - I may well fork out for it and be done with it. The only additional expense will be buying the discs, ink and glossy paper (I print on the discs, and print covers too) for all the extra back-ups I'll do to justify the outlay to do them. Ha ha ha ha LOL

Thanks for all your help. How's the pub? PM me instead of going OT in this thread...

Originally Posted by MackemX

pinch my mates when he's not looking

Pinch your mates "what"? P.S. It's OK if your mate is female, and I guess it's OK if they're not... ha ha ha ha

Your asking about the Pub, have you been over there lately?, it's real quiet!
Nah - I dabbled in The Pub and VHOT for a while - but I'm not really an OT forum kinda person. I enjoy these forums coz I learn and get to help people.

Getting back on track - and after a few months (Xmas and the New Year got in the way), I've finally gotten around to finishing this project.

I took the plunge and got DVDRemake Pro (with a nice little 10% discount from MackemX - nice one, thank you! ) and have succeeded as follows:

* Project 1: Remove all the unwanted items from the first episodic disc. This includes deleting any links to the removed items.

* Project 2: Remove all the unwanted items from the second episodic disc. This includes deleting any links to the removed items.

* Project 3: The resultant DVD structure from using the "Merge DVDs" function.

- In this third project, I changed the default "Disk 1 / Disk 2" menu image to one I wanted.

- I've done some tinkering to make sure that there are the appropriate links / jumps / calls as required at the end of episodes, and within the menus.


However... I'm left with one final little touch that'd be really nice (and handy) but I can't figure it out:

Where I've added buttons on menu screens myself, how do I get some kind of underline or highlight working to show that a button has been selected?

The original buttons from the episodic DVDs have these and they're still present. I can't see any way of copying attributes etc. over to my buttons. I suspect that it's a layer on the original image that I can't make use of with my buttons.

Cheers...

As an aside, I have to say that it was well worth the money buying DVDRemake Pro - very powerful and pretty intuitive. Thoroughly recommended!

Well, getting older does have it's benefits - especially when you actually apply lessons learned from previous experience.

I figured I'd go ahead and burn the "test" output of the DVD - just in case. And see exactly what went on with my new buttons. And a good job I did...

It seems that DVDRemake Pro applies a flashing highlight to new buttons when they're navigated to - changing between clear (i.e. no highlight) to light and very see-through grey. The period is about 1 second clear, 1 second grey.

However - As a time period is required to observe the flashing, the new buttons don't get the opportunity to "flash" when navigated to on a still menu, as it's running time is zero seconds.

So, all I need do now is get a short motion menu for the initial "choose disk 1 or disk 2" menu and I'm in business.

Originally Posted by daamon

So, all I need do now is get a short motion menu for the initial "choose disk 1 or disk 2" menu and I'm in business.

Well, I've done some tinkering and I can get it working - as long as I "Replace block" with a VOB from one of the original DVDs. I then add buttons to link / jump as required, make sure the menu loops (link back to itself in the "Post commands") and all's good.

However, being the fussy git I am, I don't want to use one of the VOBs from the original DVD. So, I used DVDRemake Pro to export a BMP of an image from the DVD that I do want.

I then created 30s of silence in an audio tool. I combined the BMP as the video source with the audio to give me a 30 second MPEG2 of the image.

I then authored this with no menu using TMPGEnc DVD Author to get a VOB file, as DVDRemake Pro only accepts VOBs as replacements.

I then loaded this VOB and got this message:



The log entry reads:



However, I was able to use this VOB as a replacement. I added buttons and configured them as before.

I exported a test DVD - the menu is the image I want, and it loops as required. But the buttons now don't appear as selectable - i.e. testing the DVD on PowerDVD, the buttons change the mouse icon originally but don't after I've replaced with my own VOB.

There are no prohibited options set. I can't figure out why, when using my own VOB, the buttons are disabled. Any ideas?

Well, after quite of lot of digging and some help from the support team at DimadSoft, I got it sorted.

Here's how:

* I found the frame in the original episode that I wanted to use as the background for my menu and used the "Export frame" in DVDRemake Pro to export this as a bitmap (menu.bmp) file.

* I then used menu.bmp as the video source in TMPGEnc and a wave 30 seconds long (can be anything) to ouput "Video Only" to get menu.m2v.

You have to have the 30 seconds of audio to get the M2V file 30 seconds long, even though there's no audio in it.

* I then used DVDLab Pro to create a very basic project consisting of:

a) menu.m2v in the menu
b) menu.m2v in the movie - this is required by DVDLabPro and is only there to meet this need. The objective is to author a project where menu.m2v is the menu.
c) Be sure to put two buttons on the menu, and where you want them to be. For safety, I made these both link to the "movie". They can be changed in DVDRemake Pro.
d) Author the project.

* Import the VOB files from the DVDLab Pro project into DVDRemake Pro.

* Now, when choosing "Replace Block", the imported VOB files will appear in the list with the two buttons created.

* Select the appropriate menu from the list (be sure it's showing two buttons) and then amend the button's position, size and command as required.

This guide was very helpful in helping me to realise the above approach:

www.dimadsoft.com/dvdremakepro/ht_customize_menu_full.php