DVD18 to DVDR

[MictXP]

I imagine I will get a lot of critique for the mere thought of this, but here goes...

I am attempting to back up Schindler's List. I have to date done all of my backups using transcoding techniques, though I have tried CCE backups of Titanic and Braveheart. My eyes are very blurry, and my TV and DVD player are both crappy, so the transcoded copies look fine to me. Actually, better than the CCE copies, but I will blame that solely on my copy techniques and not on the programs.

Anyway, Schindler's List is about a 12 GB movie, if I remember correctly. I first tried to copy the movie only using DVDShrink to one disc, but it couldn't do it -- it couldn't get the compression low enough. That's not a good sign, even to me. Right now I am using DVD2One to copy both sections down to one disc. I'm not expecting great results, but it's only a half hour wasted if this doesn't work.

I'm thinking that with the excellent DVDRebuilder tool, even I can do a CCE copy now. And what better time to do it? So to start, I need to combine the titlesets. I am thinking there are three different ways to do this:
1) Using DVD2One, set the movie to 15 GB, add the titlesets together using the seamless mode (or use DVDShrink), or
2) Rename the VOB files to be consecutively ordered, then open in IFOEdit, and Create New IFOs for the VOBs, or
3) Use VOBEdit to combine all the VOBs, then #2.

Then after this, load it up into DVDRebuilder, or another front-end for CCE (since this is a movie-only copy, I guess some of the other one-click CCE programs would work).

However, I'd like some advice if anyone has any to offer. My ultimate goal is, unfortunately, a single DVD with just the movie. You know, can't waste the extra calories to change the disc! So, anyone know of anything else I haven't considered?

DVD2One has 6 minutes left. I'll let you know how it turns out, but be warned, I often cannot see the faults of transcoding large movies :rolleyes:

[MictXP]

The DVD2One copy actually doesn't look that bad. It looks better than the average Divx file, and probably better than SVCD. When I pause the movie, I can see blocks, but for the most part, I don't see them when it is played. (A little side note -- I cannot see the quality loss when making DVDs (even when watching on my computer), but I can see quality loss when making Divx files. Strange.)

Even so, I think I will try CCE for this movie. Perhaps I will become a convertor :p

A more specific question -- would it be better to do full resolution, or half resolution? I really never minded the quality of SVCD movies, and I did those at half resolution.

[ChickenMan]

Since your not very critical of the quality of the final product, then I would just stay with the DVD2One copy.

However, DVD2SVCD using CCE or DVDReBuilder using CCE both can do a far better job of creating a quality conversion than any of the transcoders can ever do. DVD2SVCD does movie only, just a simple rename of the 2nd set of vob files and manually load them in after loading in the first set is all thats needed. ReBuilder does fill DVD only, so to do movie only, you need to prepare the VOB files with your options 2 or 3 above and have a valid IFO file for them. ReBuilder is a bit quicker than DVD2SVCD as well, even though they use similar tools.

[flumpdumpy]

I just got this movie as well, and was utterly stunned to find out that it was that large. I'm not that surprized that it doesn't look bad shrunk down so much. I guess the people who encoded this DVD completely forgot that %99.9 of this movie is in black and white. I'm going to test QuEnc to back it up this weekend.

[jippiejajee]

what about to capture the movie with a card like the Dazzle DVCII.
Did that before I had IC7 and results was quite good especially when capturing from DVD. Could hardly see a difference.
Why I changed to IC7 (it is faster)