LOTR 2 DVD9's to 1 DVD5 no loss

[47elbag]

okay....after much trial and error here is a way to put both dvd9 Lord of the Ring disks to 1 4.7 dvd-r

1. rip both disks (i use dvd decrypter) in "file" mode. Rip all of the files under vts 01 on both disks

2. re-name vobs on disk 2 to 06 - 11.

3. put all the vobs (vobs only, no ifo's) into 1 directory so it will read vob 1 thru vob 11

4. use dvd2avi to create your d2v file

5. seperate the vobs back into their original directories and rename them to their original names

6. now use dvd2avi again, but this time use it on each vob set respectively. run it on the vobs from disk one and then disk 2. only this time we are just concerned with the ac3 files it will generate. you can discard the d2v files.

7. so now we have one d2v file for the entire 2 disk set and 2 ac3 files, one for each disk.

8. Use ac3delay corrector and add 510ms to the ac3 for disk 2

9. use filemerger to merge both ac3 files. (you will have to manually name the file at the bottom because the default is mpg, and we want ac3.

10. drop the new compiled ac3 file into besplit so we know it is built correctly.

11. now use avisynth to create a script so you can rencode the whole movie with CCE. (i rencoded the movie at a bitrate of 2105 and it turned out absolutely fine, CCE rocks!)

12. use pulldown on your new mpv file that CCE created for us and now we have an m2v file and an ac3 file that is ready for authoring with the correct synch values and all.


Of course some of these steps can be done in different orders, but this is how it worked out perfect for me. And you dont have to touch the video at all. this is for NTSC movies obviously. GOOD LUCK.!!

[DJ Bobo]

no loss? don't have to touch the video?!

You have already reencoded so you touched the video and there is quite a big loss :D

To minimize the loss you should encode in a non-anamorphic resolution. For NTSC it will be 720x272 (with black bars to get x480 of course). You'll reduce then the compression artifacts.

[47elbag]

yes,...other than re-encoding of course. But you cant tell a difference in quality. I am fairly new to this so im sorry for being happy about finding a way around having to transcode my audio and not losing my 5.1. I was just trying to help out a few. Im sure there are better ways to do it which i noted in my post, but this is the way it worked for me. Unless your George Lucas, i dont think you'll be able to tell an obvious difference in picture quality. I would be happy to hear more about your ideas involving the non-anamorphic way which is new to me as i am fairly ignorant compared to many when it come to re-authoring, so, by all means share your thoughts or facts on this method please. How does it effect my video? will ilose my 5.1 encoding? What would the main difference be? Give me the steps, or walk me through the process. Or link me to a thread explaining it. Im always up for bigger and brighter ideas. thanks

[DJ Bobo]

Assuming you have the widescreen version, it's about your avisynth script, it should look then like this:

loadplugin("...\mpeg2dec.dll")
mpeg2source("...\blabla.d2v")
crop(x,y,a,b)
BilinearResize(a,272)
AddBorders(u,104,u,104)

Explanations:
1) the crop line: x, y, a & b must be divisible by 2. x is what you crop on the left, y on the top, a is what remains horizontally & b is what remains vertically. I guess you already know about this :D
2) I choosed bilinear instead of bicubic because we will be resizing in only one direction.
3) u = x / 2 ;)

This will produce a non-anamorphic DVD.
Main advantadge: less compression artifacts, especially on action scenes.
Disadvantadge: you'll loose about 25% sharpness.
If you can live with that (not really noticeable ;)) sharpness loss, this is definitely the way to go.
Don't forget to encode in progressive mode, to get the highest possible quality (I guess you know that too :D)

BTW, I would like to recommend the tool "Bitrate Viewer". It can tell you the average quantizer of your file. The lower the better!

[EDIT]
The sound has nothing to do with this, so the 5.1 track will remain untouched of course.

[47elbag]

good info....thanks for the insight. I will try this method and see how it works. what i was refering to about losing the 5.1 was because when joining those 2 ac3 files from disk 1 and disk 2, the only way i knew how at the time was with BeSweet. In using this method it required that both files be transcoded first. When doing this it would downgrade my audio from 5.1 to 2 channel. The method i describe above is the way to join 2 ac3 files and maintain the integrity of the files while not losing the 5.1 structure. It really only applies when you have to merge 2 or more ac3 files. Im sure there is another way to do it as with everything else, but as i said before it was what worked for me, and i thought maybe anyone else struggeling with the same problems might find it helpful.

[LordTrace]

8. Use ac3delay corrector and add 510ms to the ac3 for disk 2

just wondering how you came up with that number? :)