How I cut the opening and end credits before using AutoGK. Is there an easier way?

[krackato]

First off, I love AutoGK. Makes things very simple.

I'm encoding Sopranos episodes from the DVD releases. I'm trying to get the entire season to fit onto 1 DVD-R blank, so each episode can only be 345megs apiece.

In order to maximixe quality, I've wanted to cut out the opening credits. So far, my method works, but it's a bit loopy.

1. Put in DVD
2. Open up DVDShrink
3. Switch to ReAuthor mode.
4. Drop in Episode that you want into the left panel
5. Click the "Set Start/End Frames" button
6. Set your in and out point.
7. Deselect the unneeded audio tracks in the 'Compression Settings' tab.
8. Click the "Backup!" button
9. In the first selection box, choose ISO disc image.
10. Backup the ISO disc image.

Then basically you mount the image using Daemon Tools and rip the episode using DVDDecrypter using ifo mode and run the resulting files through AutoGK.

Anyway, I'm sure other people are figured this out. I was just wondering if there's an easier way.

[manono]

Hi-

You can probably do the same thing directly in DVD Decrypter. First figure out which chapters include the credits and then uncheck them. With any luck, the first and last chapters will have the credits and only the credits.

So, if I were doing it, I'd uncheck the first and last chapters, decrypt the remaining chapters, play it to make sure the episode is complete, but without the credits. Once you've got it figured out, it should be the same for all the episodes.

[krackato]

I like to keep a few seconds of the opening credits and a few seconds of the end credits.

[manono]

In that case, you can do it using DVD2AVI, by using the "[" and "]" buttons to keep the part of each episode you want. Here's what the AutoGK FAQ (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=72679) says about it:
6.6 How can I select only subset of input vobs? (i.e. remove credits for instance)
- There is no direct way of doing that but this can be done:
1) start the job
2) when DVD2AVI launched restore it from taskbar and hit Esc
3) select subset you need
4) "save as" and overwrite partially created D2V file
5) encoding will proceed as usual