Split to two Discs - Sweet Home Alabama

[sonontop]

I've split numerous dual layered movies to two discs to maintain complete quality and all of the extras. I use IfoEdit and choose the main movie for splitting, in this cases VTS_01_0.IFO. Under VOB Extras in IfoEdit I choose to Split to 2 DVDs and create subfolders Disc1 and Disc2. I then choose my split point, which I wanted to be between chapters 8 and 9.
After splitting I play disc 1 and the main menu comes up fine. When I hit play it doesn't work. I figured out it was looking for VTS_05, which I don't know why, since the movie is in VTS_01. But since VTS_05 is small, I add it to the directory and Disc1 now plays fine.
When I try to play Disc2 and access the main menu screen, I get "DVD Warning: An illegal navigation command was encountered" .... Basically it can't find the main menu in Disc2. I always thought the main menu was located in the VTS_01_0.VOB file.
Next I copied all of the the other VTS_xx files ifos, vobs, etc. into the Disc2 directory. So now all files are present along with my split VTS_01_x.vob file. The DVD still can't find the main menu.
Please help. I can't understand why the DVD split didn't place the main menu in both Disc1 and Disc2 like it normally does.

[Master Yoda]

Here have a butcher here,


http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?threadid=47528&highlight=illegal+navigation

Should sort your illegal nav problem.

[2COOL]

Originally posted by sonontop
After splitting I play disc 1 and the main menu comes up fine. When I hit play it doesn't work. I figured out it was looking for VTS_05, which I don't know why, since the movie is in VTS_01. But since VTS_05 is small, I add it to the directory and Disc1 now plays fine.
Some DVDs are authored so that after play button is pressed, a video clip gets played like movie rating or company logo. In whatever your case was, that title clip resided in your VTS_05.
When I try to play Disc2 and access the main menu screen, I get "DVD Warning: An illegal navigation command was encountered" .... Basically it can't find the main menu in Disc2. I always thought the main menu was located in the VTS_01_0.VOB file.
Not all DVDs are authored the same. Normally, the menu VOBs reside in the same titleset as your movie but some may be authored into your VIDEO_TS.VOB. Also, even if your movie is in, say, titleset 2 or higher, it may reside in your VTS_01_0.VOB. This is a normal case in many anime or episode DVDs.

Just for my personal preference as with most others who have done splits, I always have my movie playing first upon insert and if there is a menu existing, I just press my remote's too/menu button to call it. This seems to ease the transition of going from the end of disk one to watching the next chapter on disk 2 sooner instead of selecting play through the starting menu. It's just a simple jump to title command in your First Play PGC in you VIDEO_TS.IFO
Next I copied all of the the other VTS_xx files ifos, vobs, etc. into the Disc2 directory. So now all files are present along with my split VTS_01_x.vob file. The DVD still can't find the main menu.If it can fit all, did you really copy all the files over, especially all 0.VOBs and VIDEO_TS.VOB? After doing so, you should also "Get VTS Sectors" before testing.
Please help. I can't understand why the DVD split didn't place the main menu in both Disc1 and Disc2 like it normally does. Hmmm...When I was using Win98 at the time and having the copy menus over option checked, it still didn't do it. but when I upgraded to WinXP SP1, it started working. But keep in mind that since you selectively picked a certain IFO to do your split, that certain titleset may not have the menus in it.

[sonontop]

2cool .... I've learned a lot from your posts and cheat sheets. Thanks ... they are all great. However in this case of Sweet Home Alabma, I'm still looking for answers.

For Disc 2, I also edit the Video_TS file to jump to Title 1 so that the movie plays instantly from where it left off in Disc 1. So when I play Disc 2 in IfoEdit, the movie will play. However, when I try to go to the title menu (main menu) for bonus features, chapter selection or whatever, I get that illegal navigation error. It is like the Title menu is not present in Disc 2 or somehow it is lost. I feel as if it is in the VTS_01... file but that it got split away only to Disc 1 and not Disc 2.
Again with the split VTS_01... files in Disc 2, I copied every other VTS_xx into that directory. So Disc 2 has every file and the split VTS_01, yet I cannot get to the main menu.
Meanwhile Disc 1 only has the first half split of the VTS_01 file and the Video_TS file and it works fine (along with that small VTS_05).
Is there anything else I can do to get my menu on Disc 2? As for my operating system, I'm running WinXP SP1 as well.

[2COOL]

Did you press your "Get VTS Sectors" button for Disk 2 after you copied your files over?

[voo_doo99]

@sonontop
I would try @2COOL tip of running 'Get VTS Sectors' a coupla times on Disk 2 to see it it helps. If not, I suspect the movie Root Menu might be referencing some chapter in Disk 1 which would cause the navigation error. From the top of my head, coupla things you could try to find out in IFOedit to see if that's the case.

1)Put a explicit call to the Titleset Menu in the First Play PGC command table to see if the Menu does come up.

2)Inspect the Menu-1 [Root Menu] command table for any illegal reference.

HTH.

[sonontop]

Sorry for the delayed reply guys. I did try "Get VTS Sectors" a number of times to be sure and the same problem arises.
I modified the first play as suggested to explicitly jump to the title set menu and the error occurs.
I looked at the Root Menu Command table, but I'm really not that good at seeing if it is referencing anything illegal or not. It looks like a typical command table to me.
Are there any other methods of splitting movies other than ifoedit? I would like to see if this is an ifoedit limitation of sorts with the way this movie was authored.

I'm going to split this movie again for the 4th or 5th time, but this time I'm going to leave the suggested layer break as is instead of moving it to Chapter 9.

thanks for all the assistance thusfar

[sonontop]

I found the solution .... though I don't understand it.

Normally when I work with a new movie, I analyze it and immediately have the movie jump to the titleset menu by modifying the Video_TS ... First Play PGC. I always pick the first Pre Command and edit it to jump to the titleset to bypass all the FBI Warnings, trailers, etc. In this movie, there were 18 Pre Commands, mostly Set GPreg...., whatever those are.
I then split the movie using Ifoedit at whatever Chapter point I want. The two sub directories Disc1 and Disc2 now have the split movie, each with a Video_TS that has my jump to title menu as the first Pre Command. In Disc1, this works fine and my menu works and I can play the movie. In Disc2, I get the illegal navigation error and no main menu will show up.
Well this time, I re-ripped the movie to my hard drive and forgot to edit the Video_TS file to jump to the title menu. I split the movie to Disc1 and Disc2. I edited the Video_TS file in both the Disc1 and Disc2 diretories, only this time I made the jump to titleset the 18th Pre Command after all of the Set GPregs. Disc1 still worked just fine and now Disc2 works as well. I guess for some reason the split movie in Disc2 needed those GPreg settings to activate the main menu.
To test and understand things better, I placed the jump to titleset on Disc1 to the first Pre Command. It works. I place it as the last Pre Command. It works also. For Disc2, I place the jump to titleset as the first Pre Command and it fails. I place it as the last Pre Command and it works. Go figure. I guess the lesson here is to place the jump to titleset as one of your later Pre Commands instead of the first because you might bypass some needed information.