wanting to rip 4 home miniDVDs to hard drive then burn to 1 full DVD

[lotusdog]

i followed the guides and got DVD fab DVD decripter and DVD shrink. it is my understanding that i am to DVD decrypt my home mini DVDS which creates a TS file. then i go to DVD shrink and reauthor the .vob files? when i go to do this my whole comp freezes up have to hit the button to restart. am i correct that this is what i should be doing. i can rip and burn from mini to DVD just fine but i want to put more than one mini on a DVD. obtained My Sonic DVD but i am not able to plug my video recorder into my comp (sony handy cam). And Nero is not much help either. i have searched here and at Afterdawn and am at a loss as to what i should do or if i am even doing things correctly. using Win 2000, 384 ram, 250 GB external HD, NEC burner/player. i am a newbie, never did anything but homework on word and excel and powerpoint and use chat rooms till this year. recently just figured out how to use cameras, firefox, and install some of my own hardware.

[lotusdog]

this also may be helpful info i downloaded Mpeg2cut-1.1.rar so as to get the ability to play Mpeg2 files since nero says i have to buy thier mpeg2 plugin to play the IFO file that is in the TS file of my home mini DVD, and nero still tells me that i need thier plug in?? i don't know if this is a related issue i was just rereading the DVD guides

[CWR03]

Since they're home movies, there's no reason to decrypt them, although you can copy the files to your drive using DVD Decrypter. You can also copy them in Windows Explorer.

DVD Shrink's reauthor mode wasn't intended to combine multiple disks or create one disk from multiple movies - for that you'd need a program that can take clips or individual files and reauthor a new set of files ready to be burned to DVD. I rarely do what you're trying to do, but I use Roxio's DVD Builder when I do since it's so simple - it's literally drag-and-drop.
this also may be helpful info i downloaded Mpeg2cut-1.1.rar so as to get the ability to play Mpeg2 files since nero says i have to buy thier mpeg2 plugin to play the IFO file that is in the TS file of my home mini DVD, and nero still tells me that i need thier plug in??
A few points here:

1) In order to play MPEG2 files on your PC, you need a software DVD player such as WinDVD or PowerDVD. You can't "play" .IFO files, but you can launch a series of .VOB files by opening the .IFO with certain players.

2) The plugin Nero is asking for is to allow you to edit MPEG-2 files, not view them. "Mpeg2cut," judging by its name, is probably just a program that allows editing, but it won't aid in any way with your problems with Nero or not being able to view them.

3) It's just me being picky, but DVD Decrypter creates a VIDEO_TS folder containing the various files on your disk. A "TS file" is something completely different.