multiple dvds + original menu/chapters to blu-ray

[maman]

From what I've read on some old forums from a few years back, this is not possible because of the difference between file system and menu structures between the two. If no software has/can be created yet to work around this problem, then I guess I'm out of luck, but hoping someone can be of assistance there.

If not, the next thing I'd like to find out is if this can even be done manually. E.G., take several DVDs (home made, no encryption or copyright issues), rip/encode them to blu-ray, then create a menu/submenu structure that mimics what I originally wanted.

So the main menu would have buttons for "movie 1", "movie 2", .... And clicking the button for "movie 2" would take you to a sub-menu that would have links to the points in that movie where the original dvd's menu/chapters used to point (and I would have to set all that up manually on the BD side).

Thanks

[Chetwood]

Why go through all the hassle with menus when you can simply rip one file per movie and name them accordingly so the players file browser serves the same purpose?

[Ghitulescu]

Have you checked multiAVCHD?

[framura]

Its' exactly what I am doing with some my DVDs (I need to save space on my library). As BD authoring program I use Adobe Encore CS5.

I demuxed video, audio and subtitle track from each DVD with PGCDemux: then I converted subtitle .sup files to .txt files (supported by Encore) with Subtitle Workshop.

I also used Restream to delete sequential end codes from video demuxed file. Until now it's very easy and very fast.

Most difficult task was to recreate menus with chapters and so on: I extracted menu's image file and with many patience I (re)created menu's structure with Encore (manually).

[maman]

@chetwood-

Sorry I'm not sure what you mean. are you saying I can rip/encode each dvd to it's own file and all blu-ray players have a file browser that I can use instead of a main menu? Will that allow me to retain the original menu and chapter structure if each DVD or will I have to recreate that?

If so, that would work, I don't need a top level menu. All I care about is that I can chose the content from any given DVD, and then go straight to any of the chapters, broken out how they originally were on the DVD.


I will give multiAVCHD and Encore a look too. Framura- are you saying Encore will let you create nested menus (at least 2 levels)?

[framura]

@chetwood-

Sorry I'm not sure what you mean. are you saying I can rip/encode each dvd to it's own file and all blu-ray players have a file browser that I can use instead of a main menu? Will that allow me to retain the original menu and chapter structure if each DVD or will I have to recreate that?

If so, that would work, I don't need a top level menu. All I care about is that I can chose the content from any given DVD, and then go straight to any of the chapters, broken out how they originally were on the DVD.


I will give multiAVCHD and Encore a look too. Framura- are you saying Encore will let you create nested menus (at least 2 levels)?

Yes maman,

Encore let me to create many menu levels: for example I create a Blu-Ray with some Doctor Who episodes (old episodes) from my DVD collection (I have many DW DVDs and I need to save some space, otherwise my wife .....).

I create a first level menu, to choose episode (episode1, episode2, and so on), then I create a menu level for each episode. This level contains two links: first link to play episode and second link to another menu to choose single part (chapters) of each episode.

Encore it's a good program (for this purpose) but its' very memory hungry but allows me to not re-transcode every video/audio file: so creating process of a new blu-ray from mpeg-2 video and AC3 audio (with subtitles) it's not long.

[maman]

Yes maman,

Encore let me to create many menu levels: for example I create a Blu-Ray with some Doctor Who episodes (old episodes) from my DVD collection (I have many DW DVDs and I need to save some space, otherwise my wife .....).

I create a first level menu, to choose episode (episode1, episode2, and so on), then I create a menu level for each episode. This level contains two links: first link to play episode and second link to another menu to choose single part (chapters) of each episode.

Encore it's a good program (for this purpose) but its' very memory hungry but allows me to not re-transcode every video/audio file: so creating process of a new blu-ray from mpeg-2 video and AC3 audio (with subtitles) it's not long.

Thanks, that sounds perfect. You didn't even need to re-transcode your video? I keep reading people saying that even if your mpeg-2 video is dvd compliant, it still needed to be transcoded to play off a blu-ray... if not, that would definitely make things go faster.

I don't have any subtitle files to deal with either in my case.

One thing- you said "I also used Restream to delete sequential end codes from video demuxed file"

Can you explain what this means and why you had to do it?

[framura]

Thanks, that sounds perfect. You didn't even need to re-transcode your video? I keep reading people saying that even if your mpeg-2 video is dvd compliant, it still needed to be transcoded to play off a blu-ray... if not, that would definitely make things go faster.

I don't have any subtitle files to deal with either in my case.

One thing- you said "I also used Restream to delete sequential end codes from video demuxed file"

Can you explain what this means and why you had to do it?
If video and audio tracks are compatibles with blu-ray project (in my case I create a 720x576 MPEG-2 25fps interlaced blu-ray, audio AC3) you don't need to transcode.

I must to use restream (only with video track) because pgcdemux (used to demux elementary video,audio and subtitle track from DVDs) don't delete some MPEG-2 flags from DVD's VOB files, flags called "sequential end codes" (I think a single VOB file has end code and each movie has many VOBs file): it's a simple (and fast) run of restream (near 2 minutes on my PC, old quad core 2ghz).

[lutinor]

If video and audio tracks are compatibles with blu-ray project (in my case I create a 720x576 MPEG-2 25fps interlaced blu-ray, audio AC3) you don't need to transcode.

I must to use restream (only with video track) because pgcdemux (used to demux elementary video,audio and subtitle track from DVDs) don't delete some MPEG-2 flags from DVD's VOB files, flags called "sequential end codes" (I think a single VOB file has end code and each movie has many VOBs file): it's a simple (and fast) run of restream (near 2 minutes on my PC, old quad core 2ghz).
Well, not sure if 'old' dvd format is blueray friendly but if you use x264 you have a better compression and you keep the same quality. No mention about how fast is SD encodage in our days :)

[Chetwood]

Will that allow me to retain the original menu and chapter structure if each DVD or will I have to recreate that?
No, I meant that you don't need any original menu since the file browser of your standalone will list each ep and allow random accesss. The fastest way to retain chapters would be to convert each main movie to mkv.

[maman]

No, I meant that you don't need any original menu since the file browser of your standalone will list each ep and allow random accesss. The fastest way to retain chapters would be to convert each main movie to mkv.

Hmm, I guess i'm still not really following you there. What do you mean when you say it will allow "random access"?

I like the original chapter structure of the dvd's as they are since they mark points in the dvd that make sense to skip to. I get that if each video is in it's own folder, a browser would let me go straight there, which duplicates the function of a menu, but once i'm 1 level deep to the movie I want to view, I don't see how I get directly to the 'chapter' I want to go to using this method. (I get that 'chapters' wouldn't be there anymore, but I don't get what concept replaces them in this proposed solution)

I also want this blu-ray to be read as a standard blu-ray in any player (a bdmv right?). I don't want it to be a data disc.

After looking into it, it seems that multiAVHC does indeed do what I want, but I think the learning curve will take a bit of time...

[Chetwood]

Random access like on a CD, you can start with any file you want by entering the file number on the remote. I also never said one movie per folder, I always have all videos in one folder, the root dir. And like I said, converting them to MKV with MakeMKV will retain chapters so once you selected a file for playback you can skip through the chapters as you do on the original DVD.

[framura]

Hmm, I guess i'm still not really following you there. What do you mean when you say it will allow "random access"?

I like the original chapter structure of the dvd's as they are since they mark points in the dvd that make sense to skip to. ....

After looking into it, it seems that multiAVHC does indeed do what I want, but I think the learning curve will take a bit of time...

I tried to use MultiAVCHD but isn't possible to have multiple menu levels: in my case I would like to create a blu-ray from some DVDs and I want to mantain also credits/interview/trailer for each DVD (for example 1 level to play movie, 1 level to play credits/trailer/interview and so on and 1 level for movies chapters, for each DVDs converted to blu-ray).

In few words I want a total conversion of multiple DVDs into 1 blu-ray: I tried with Sony Architect DVD Studio Pro (trial version) but it's stop with error during blu-ray (folder or iso) creation (it works only if I transcode every track).

With Encore I haven't problem except a very long delay (some minutes) when I load a complex project: the cause is certainly RAM, Encore it's very memory hungry.

[maman]

Thanks Chetwood, I guess I'll have to give that a try and see for myself how it works. As long as it can play in an blu-ray player and retains all the functionality it sounds like that would work.

And yeah- I think you can only do 2 levels with mulitAVCHD. It fits what I want to do, but it seems a little buggy and not very user friendly, to me at least. Getting the chapter links and thumbnails to show correctly was a huge pain, and some stuff won't even show in the preview, you actually have to publish and burn/mount iso first to check it out. I'll try the different methods suggested here though and see what works best for me. Thanks

[Ghitulescu]

You can't bring the original menus on the BD. You need to create others from scratch.