How to convert titles to chapters?

[morra]

Hi,
I've got a lot of short videoclips which I have put on a DVD. Each of these videos was made as separate titles, but I would like them to be chapters instead (because of compability problems with lots of titles on my DVD-player).

In other words, I would like only one title and many chapters on this DVD.

Anyone who knows how I can do this?

Thanks for all help! :)

[Sir Didymus]

The authoring of your DVD should be made again from scratch, IMHO...

May I assume you have built up your original DVD using an 1 click application (like FAVC, for instance) ?

Are you also interested in keeping the menu of yout DVD ?

A manual procedure, based on a component of FAVC (the BatchMux application) can be used, and it is not dramatically complex, if no menues are involved...

Of course, if other people have better suggestions to propose, please come in...

Cheers,
SD

Ah, forget to add that placing different clips into different titles enables the possibility to handle sources with different characteristics (aspect ratio, audio, etc), since the differnt titles can be placed in different VTS. If you want to place everything within a single title, all the clips should have the same characteristics...

[morra]

I used ConvertXtoDVD to convert the videos to DVD.
I haven't added any menues to the DVD.

How do I use the BatchMux application you refer to? Are there a GUI or do I have to use parameters when starting it?

[Sir Didymus]

Hem... Sorry, I don't know ConvertXtoDVD...

I assume it produces a set of video (m2v) and audio (ac3 ?) assets in some temporary folder, before performing the authoring. Is it right ?

BatchMux have no gui, it is a simple command line tool to organise some large number of assets for MuxMan (the nice authoring application of MpuCoder). MuxMan have a GUI, and you may place the single files in the file compositor, allowing to collect all of the video (and audio) assets into a single title...

There is also a thread on the subject in the authoring forum...

Cheers,
SD

[morra]

I don't think ConvertXtoDVD makes temporary files. As far as I know it's just writing directly to the VOB-files in the output-folder.

Are you talking about the free or the pro version of MuxMan?

Thanks for all your help! :D

[r0lZ]

I would like them to be chapters instead (because of compability problems with lots of titles on my DVD-player).
What kind of compatibility problems have you experienced?
How many titles do you have in the compilation?

[morra]

The DVD-player only wants to play the first title, and there are no way of skipping to the next, except for playing fast forward. I know it isn't very good to play DVDs on, but I would like it to work anyway.

There are about 30 titles in this compilation.

[r0lZ]

IMO, the easiest way to do what you want is to rebuild a new compilation with DVD Shrink in re-author mode, from your current compilation made with ConvertXtoDVD. There will still be 30 different titles, but with the help of PgcEdit and its DVD Shrink plugin, you can improve the navigation of the new DVD to be able to jump to the previous or next title easily with the remote.

[Sir Didymus]

Agreed...
It's very strange for a player to show the issues you are describing. Most probably it is the navigation and/or the authoring created by ConvertXtoDVD that is troublesome...

Also please discard my previous suggestion to use MuxMan: without the component assets (video, audio) there is little you can do (apart than following the excellent suggestion of r0lZ)...

Next time you may want to give FAVC a try... Just to verify if really your player dislikes authoring based on different titles...

Cheers,
SD

[morra]

Okay, thanks for all of your help, I will try what r0lZ suggest ;)

[blutach]

Or if you have Ner0 Recode (or DVD2One), use the merge titles feature to merge them all together.

Regards