AVI2DVD dummies guide - interested?

[WhipHubley]

Hi there,

After a fair amount of reading, experimenting, asking questions etc. I've finally reached a point where I feel very comfortable with the AVI2DVD conversion process.

I know a number of people feel this process is not worth it, and with the rise of DivX DVD players maybe in the future it won't be, but I still think there's a lot of people out there who are interested, and I know there's a great sense of satisfaction in "mastering" your own DVD's. It almost makes you appreciate a bit of blockiness in the dark sections :-)

In light of this I'm thinking of writing up a compete newbies guide to the AVI2DVD process using DVD2SVCD. Right from the point of just having your AVI files down to the end result - a DVD ready to be played.

I know if will be quite a long-winded HOWTO, with many steps, but if anyone is interested in this please let me know and I'll write it. As long as there's an interest out there I'm happy to put in a bit of effort. I'll be happy to accept criticism of it and make amendments, and hopefully when's it's in an acceptable state it might become a sticky.

Let me know,

Thanks.

[richarddd]

I believe there would a fair amount of interest in such a guide. As you probably know, there are a bunch of newbie avi2dvd cookbooks out there, for example, http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=61142. Not to mention http://www.doom9.org/mpg/avi2dvdr.htm

[WhipHubley]

Originally posted by richarddd
I believe there would a fair amount of interest in such a guide. As you probably know, there are a bunch of newbie avi2dvd cookbooks out there, for example, http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=61142. Not to mention http://www.doom9.org/mpg/avi2dvdr.htm

I wasn't aware of that first link - it looks very impressive. I'll read through it later and if I feel it covers all the bases then I won't post anything. There no point. Hopefully now that there's several references to AVI2DVD in this post other will find that link :-)

Thanks.

[WhipHubley]

hmm, can't connect to that link at all now which is a damn shame :-(

hopefully a minor glitch in the web...

[ChickenMan]

My AVI 2 DVDR Guide as per the above CDFreaks addy, is also posted at http://www.dvdrbase.com/showthread.php?t=25572

CM

[WhipHubley]

Ah - that's better. Thanks for adding the link to the thread.

I hope you don't mind if I peer review it. From a quick glance it looks very thorough, though. Don't think I could add much, if at all.

Thanks for writing it by the way. I wish I'd discovered it when I was learning what to do. Hopefully more will now, as I'm pretty sure this section on the doom9 forum is a central hub for people wanting information on AVI2DVD.

[richarddd]

What I'd like is a subtitles for dummies guide for using dvd2svcd to create DVDs. How to make sure that
1) regular subtitles should default to hidden
2) forced subtitles that are part of a regular subtitle stream default to on
3) forced subtitles that are their own stream default to on

[ChickenMan]

Yes, that would be nice for those Subs, but a simple edit of the IFO file with IFOEdit fixes that, takes 1min.

[ChickenMan]

Originally posted by WhipHubley
Ah - that's better. Thanks for adding the link to the thread.

I hope you don't mind if I peer review it. From a quick glance it looks very thorough, though. Don't think I could add much, if at all.

Thanks for writing it by the way. I wish I'd discovered it when I was learning what to do. Hopefully more will now, as I'm pretty sure this section on the doom9 forum is a central hub for people wanting information on AVI2DVD.
If you noted the Date it was originally posted, 27-12-2002, 10:33. That was 2 days after I got my 1st DVD Burner :) Its been updated about every 6-9 months as the programs change. Its also posted at Videohelp.com in the Tutorial section along with about another 1000 guides :)

[richarddd]

Originally posted by ChickenMan
Yes, that would be nice for those Subs, but a simple edit of the IFO file with IFOEdit fixes that, takes 1min.

Hi CM,

The IFOEdit sub guides I've seen seem more complex than that. Please point me in the right direction.

thanks

[Matthew]

"2) forced subtitles that are part of a regular subtitle stream default to on"

That is certainly not something you cannot do in IFOEdit, it must be done at the authoring level as it's a VOB issue.

What you can do in IFOEdit is have it so that an entire stream is turned on by default after the dvd is inserted. That does only take one min. VTS_PGCITI,PGC_X, insert precommand, edit precommand, set subpicture stream/[stream no.]/on.

[ChickenMan]

Originally posted by richarddd
What I'd like is a subtitles for dummies guide for using dvd2svcd to create DVDs. How to make sure that
1) regular subtitles should default to hidden
2) forced subtitles that are part of a regular subtitle stream default to on
3) forced subtitles that are their own stream default to on

1. This is the default when using DVD2SVCD.

2. You need to separate the Forced from Normal subs (can be done manually) and include as 2 separate Subtitle streams. Then use guide by Matthew for the Forced Subs stream "VTS_PGCITI,PGC_X, insert precommand, edit precommand, set subpicture stream/[stream no.]/on."

3. Just use the guide by Matthew for the Forced Subs stream "VTS_PGCITI,PGC_X, insert precommand, edit precommand, set subpicture stream/[stream no.]/on."

If the original source for the Subs is a DVD, then SubRip can rip out Forced subs only to its own file. I've found the use of DVD2SVCD likes the subs to be in *.SRT form. These are easily editted, spell checked, etc since they are simple text files.

[richarddd]

How do some commercial DVDs manage to have only one subtitle stream with the forced subs defaulting to "on"? I would have thought it possible to replicate this behavior (other than by separating the stream into two).

[Matthew]

When authoring you need to mark each of the particular subtitles as forced.

spumux, which is used before calling dvdauthor, has a forced flag option you can include when writing the xml. DVDMaestro and Scenarist also have checkboxes in the GUI (although of course with Scenarist it's possible to generate scripts that hold this info).

I have no idea what formats you are dealing with, but it's an annoyance doing this manually, hence ChickenMan's suggestion.

[richarddd]

Vobsub preserves the forced flag when you use it to rip subs. Is there authoring or muxing software which will just read vobsub (or some other sub ripper) sub stream and mux is, leaving the forced flag in place?

Demuxing a DVD into video, audio and sub streams, then putting them back together so the result is the same as the original doesn't seem like it should be such a difficult process. Lots of software will let you do this for video and audio, isn't there something that will let you pass along a sub stream unprocessed?

[Matthew]

If you are backing up DVDs then yeah there are apps that will retain the forced sub flag, such as the big 4. Although I assumed DVD2SVCD does this too (I don't use it). If doing movie-only then I imagine using rejig should retain the forced sub flags too.

If the source is avi + sub/idx (and this thread is supposedly about avi) then yes it's possible to automate the process using Scenarist or DVDauthor, but I haven't come across an application that does this.

[Schnoodledorfer]

My AVI 2 DVDR Guide as per the above CDFreaks addy, is also posted at http://www.dvdrbase.com/showthread.php?t=25572

That's now at http://forum.dvdrbase.info/showthread.php?t=25572. (The old link doesn't work, and I couldn't find a search button over there :confused: - other than that it looks like a good forum.)