? Edit Chapter Position Only

[Synetech]

Hmmm, this seems like the most apt sub-forum for this…

I created a DVD today from an AVI and set the chapters where appropriate. It all turned out nicely except that when you jump to the chapters where I set them, the video starts about 1 second too late.

I'm looking for an easy way to adjust the position of the three chapters. I don't want to alter the layout of the DVD, I don't want to add or delete chapters, I just want to move them. For example, I want to change the chapter at 11:26 to 11:25, and so on.

I looked around and found a couple of people mentioning reauthoring with some apps, but I don't want to reauthor, and I especially don't want to touch the video (both to avoid messing with the quality, and to avoid wasting several more hours of time.)

I checked IfoEdit but could not figure out a way to do this.

What's the easiest way to do that?


Thanks a lot.

[blutach]

Not free, but DVD Remake Pro (http://www.dimadsoft.com/dvdremakepro/index.php) can do this in a cinch.

Consider also making a new cell with VobBlanker (http://jsoto.posunplugged.com/vobblanker.htm) and making a chapter point there.

Regards

[Synetech]

I took a look at those but they do not seem like what I'm looking for.

I don't want to reauthor the thing, that is, I don't want to wait 1.5 hours while it reprocesses the whole video (and messes with the VOBs).

What I'm looking for is a way to for example open FOOBAR (I can't imagine why FOOBAR can't be IfoEdit), load its VTS_01_0.IFO, then double click the chapter position and change it from "11:26.0000" to "11:25.0500:" (ideally, although I'm will to settle for 1-second resolution: 11:26->11:25), click OK, save to update the IFO file only, then be done.

I don't understand why this would be so difficult to do since, from what I can find, the chapter information is stored entirely within the IFO. Why can't I just edit the IFO? All that's required is to change a few fields; a chapter time, a few sectors—no big deal right?

[blutach]

Chapters can only be on cell borders. Therefore if you want a chapter break to be different, a new cell must be defined.

There's a prog called ChapterEdit which redefines things, but it has been reported to have problems, especially on PAL DVDs.

Or if you want, try to demux with a celltimes.txt, alter your celltimes.txt to suit your chapter positions and remux with muxman.

Regards

[Synetech]

Thanks for the tips; I'll look into it further.

[Synetech]

Well I've given up on an easy solution for now because I need to get this done by tomorrow.

I've demultiplexed the DVD and am going to use IfoEdit to multiplex it with the new chapter settings. The problem is that I don't know how to calculate the celltimes—the numbers that IfoEdit expects to indicate chapter points.

Any ideas?

[r0lZ]

Load your VOBs in VirtualDubMPEG, or in any other software able to show the frame numbers.
(Note that you will have to join your VOBs first, or append them one by one in VDub.)

[Synetech]

Actually I did just that based on an article here, except that I've demuxed the VOBs into an MKV.

(I would prefer something else because VDUBMPG has that interminably long parsing process when you open it.)

Either way, I looked at the frame numbers and did what you and the article said but the resulting chapters in the final DVD files were WAY off. I wasn't surprised though because the numbers in the celltimes.txt file that PgcDemux created when I demuxed where very different from what I got from VDUBMPG.

Did I do something wrong, look at the wrong field somewhere?

[r0lZ]

I have never had this problem, and have no idea. Sorry.

[blutach]

Truly, this is not a big effort in VobBlanker (http://jsoto.posunplugged.com/vobblanker.htm) (get the latest beta).

1. Load ripped DVD. Tick Use Input Folder and Process Titles.
2. Click on the VTS which you wish to adjust the chapter points for, and click Process on the right.
3. Down the bottom, double click on the relevant title.
4. Now click on the cell you wanna change the chapter point for and click Split.
5. In the next dialogue, move the cursor to where you want the new chapter to be and click Mark and then OK. Note the warnings about navigation.
6. Click Apply.
7. You can do steps 4-6 with other cells if you like.
8. Click Process!! down the bottom and go make coffee.
9. Open the project in PgcEdit and remove the old chapter point(s) by double clicking the movie PGC and clicking on the old chapter point to make it show a blank square. You will probably also need to delete the last chapter in the Edit Chapter Table dialogue to ensure the number of chapters in the chapter table is the same as that in the PGC. OK and save.

Regards

[setarip_old]

@Synetech

Hi!

Since it sounds like you're dealing with a homebrewn DVD with no menu, no subtitles, and one audisotream, you can use "TMPGEnc DVD Author" v.1.6 (NOT 2.0) to readily (and quickly) change your chapter settings. You can obtain a FULLY functional free 30 day trial version of this commercial program at:

http://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/download/tda16.html

[Synetech]

Your're right, and I'll give that a try next time setarip_old.

Hey, thanks for the help everyone but I got it sorted out.

What I ended up doing was to use the celltimes file that PgcDemux made from the DVD that ConvertXtoDVD created. That gave me VOBs/IFOs more or less identical to the ones I had before demuxing.

I then opened the newly authored DVD in DVDShrink and used its chapter cutting dialog to find the timecodes of the chapters as they were and where I want them—thanks to the previewer. Then I calculated the difference as number of frames and simply added them to celltimes.txt.

I used IfoEdit again to author the DVD again and bam! I had what I needed and was able to do the rest.

It took longer than I had hoped (about six days!) and it was much harder than I expected, but on the other hand, I learned quite a bit in the process, so I guess it was worth it. :D

[r0lZ]

Still wondering why VirtualDub did not gave the right frame numbers. Maybe there are too many dropped/bad frames in your input VOBs?

[Sir Didymus]

Truly, this is not a big effort in VobBlanker (http://jsoto.posunplugged.com/vobblanker.htm) (get the latest beta)....



:goodpost:

Hi blutach!

Never thought to use the cell splitting feature of VobBlanker and PgcEdit in such a creative way!

AND of course, a big thanks to Jsoto and to r0lZ. It's not a discovery; however, better to state it in plain words time by time: VobBlanker and PgcEdit are really powerful tools!

[blutach]

@SD

Very powerful - especially when used in combination.

Happy New Year to all.

Regards