FYI: Importing selfmade menus to episode DVDs done with DVD Shrink

[Chetwood]

If you are often reauthoring (i.e. stripping all the menus of) episode DVDs with DVD Shrink you may already be aware of PgcEdit's "DVDShrink Remote Buttons"-macro which uses the title button on your remote to jump between eps. Although this is a sufficient way to navigate a DVD that no longer has a menu you lack info on what eps actually are on a certain DVD.

Instead of using tools like DVDRemake to blank out and relink stuff trying to keep most of the original menu (which can be quite a hassle depending on it's complexity), you can use also PgcEdit to import a selfmade menu to an episode DVD done with DVD Shrink. The practical upshot of which is that you can still reauthor your DVD with DVD Shrink in a fast and convenient way and later add any menu you did with e.g. DVD-lab Pro without having to re-author the whole DVD from scratch (i.e. demuxing to elementary streams, re-authoring in an authoring suite, compiling).

Check out this guide over at Chetwood's DVD Snippets.

[sweetness]

@Chetwood
nice guide

i have a question for you. does the dummy menu have any audio? (never used DVD-lab Pro and the flash guide is taking forever to load.) every time i import a menu with audio power dvd and my standalone plays it with no audio but ifoedit does. do you know any way to make it play the audio too? thanks

BTW it's still loading, i think it stopped.

[r0lZ]

Indeed, there is a problem with your step-by-step links. Doesn't start at all!

Anyway, thanks for this great work!

[blutach]

I understand that you can import the original titleset's menu, too. You may need a bit of reauthoring, particlarly if it directs you out of that VTS, but that shouldn't be that difficult.

Tell me if I am wrong please.

Regards

[Chetwood]

Originally posted by r0lZ
sweetness
do you know any way to make it play the audio too?

Never heard of audio power dvd but if you use DVDlabPro you can simply drag an audio file from the asset bin and drop it onto the menu window and it will add the sound. When you playback the menu the audio will be looped continuously.

Originally posted by r0lZ
Indeed, there is a problem with your step-by-step links. Doesn't start at all!

Weird, yesterday when I uploaded the new stuff it worked flawlessly, I even cleared my browser cache to be sure to read no local stuff. This morning when I checked it worked too.

Originally posted by blutach
I understand that you can import the original titleset's menu, too.

I don't see no reason why not, the question however is why would you wanna do that instead of keeping it straight when ripping from DVD?

[blutach]

@chetwood

I was just thinking along these lines:

For those who want the main movie only and, potentially, want to cut parts of it (eg credits), DVD Shrink is very easy to use. However, as you know, it doesn't retain the menu. Many people want a menu still.

But they are not as adept at using tools like IfoEdit, PgcEdit, VobBlanker and Menuedit, which can keep the DVD intact after a bit of finangling (eg blanking titlesets, which is much more space efficient than Shrink's "still image" substitution).

So, I was thinking that, for these folks, a good solution would be to reauthor in Shrink, and use one (very small) part of PgcEdit to reinsert the menu.

Regards

[Chetwood]

Originally posted by blutach
@chetwood
So, I was thinking that, for these folks, a good solution would be to reauthor in Shrink, and use one (very small) part of PgcEdit to reinsert the menu.

Let me get this straight: you're talking about ripping a DVD with DVD Shrink and then importing the *original* menu without any changes thus saving space due to the deleted titles that did not have to be replaced by space consuming still images?

[blutach]

@Chetwood

What many people are after is to reauthor the movie (maybe srtipping the credits) AND keeping the menu.

Now, what I do is not that - I keep the structure perfect, and blank out the stuff I don't want.

But plenty of other folks simply want to use a very easy method of reauthor + menu. I was just thinking of this as a method.

[Chetwood]

Originally posted by blutach
@Chetwood
But plenty of other folks simply want to use a very easy method of reauthor + menu. I was just thinking of this as a method.

Well, technically I don't see a reason why the original menu should not be used as well. Questions here:

• does the original menu still work properly when stuff was stripped during re-authoring and no tools like Menuedit/DVDRemake were used?
  
• is rebuilding the original menu to match stripped assets really easier/faster for inexperienced users and is that small amount of MBs saved by not replacing blanked titles with still images really worth the effort?

Alright, since I got a comment I've checked the final version my guide with IE and it seems it cannot handle .swf-files referenced from higher-level directories. This is now corrected so you can browse the step-by-step guides with Internet Explorer as well (once you've clicked your way through Active-X security warnings, that is...)

[blutach]

does the original menu still work properly when stuff was stripped during re-authoring and no tools like Menuedit/DVDRemake were used?

This will depend on how complex the menu is and whether it makes jumps and calls to potentially non-existent VTS's

is rebuilding the original menu to match stripped assets really easier/faster for inexperienced users and is that small amount of MBs saved by not replacing blanked titles with still images really worth the effort?

It's quite a few MBs, because the still image isn't just a 10k blank. Over, say a 25 minute, extra, even the DVD Shrink replacement will add up to many MB. I've had extras of 100MB+ with "still images" that need only be 10k blanks.

Regards

[jeanl]

Originally posted by blutach
This will depend on how complex the menu is and whether it makes jumps and calls to potentially non-existent VTS's It's quite a few MBs, because the still image isn't just a 10k blank. Over, say a 25 minute, extra, even the DVD Shrink replacement will add up to many MB. I've had extras of 100MB+ with "still images" that need only be 10k blanks.

Regards

my 2 cents (since I did exactly what blutach mentions) is that it isn't completely trivial, and it's definitely not automatic, not something you could do in a macro... See this: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=83389

Jeanl