Move Titles - NOT Titlesets - how?

[jlrm365]

I've had this issue a few times. It doesn't influence playback and I can easily author around it, but I can't help but think that there must be a way of solving it.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v732/enigmachine/threplacement.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v732/enigmachine/replacement.jpg)
Click to enlarge image

Menus and buttons are all in one VTS and I "Remap Titlesets" to place the feature in the next VTS. The trouble is that there is a blank / dummy Title within the same VTS as the menus and buttons. It's doing nothing.


How can I replace the blank / dummy, with the in-use Title (replace Title 1 with Title 2, if you look at my screenshot)?


It would make things even cleaner, allow me to remove that last VTS and tidy up the navigation even more.

My usual tools are PgcEdit and VobBlanker and sometimes IfoEdit or VobEdit. If the answer used one of those or a simple tool, to keep the workflow smooth, that would be ideal.

Thanks.

[Ghitulescu]

I've had this issue a few times. It doesn't influence playback and I can easily author around it, but I can't help but think that there must be a way of solving it.

Menus and buttons are all in one VTS and I "Remap Titlesets" to place the feature in the next VTS. The trouble is that there is a blank / dummy Title within the same VTS as the menus and buttons. It's doing nothing.


How can I replace the blank / dummy, with the in-use Title (replace Title 1 with Title 2, if you look at my screenshot)?


My usual tools are PgcEdit and VobBlanker and sometimes IfoEdit or VobEdit. If the answer used one of those or a simple tool, to keep the workflow smooth, that would be ideal.

Thanks.

This is not advance authoring. Besides you gave already yourself the answer: see the red words. :)

[r0lZ]

You can easily swap the title numbers 1 and title 2 with PgcEdit (Title -> Remap Title Numbers), but moving VTST 2 to VTST 1 to completely get rid of VTS 2 is more difficult, and the difficulty and method depends of the original authoring.

IMO, it is better to leave both VTSs in place, as doing what you want requires to almost completely re-author the DVD, and it's usually more difficult than reauthoring it from scratch. I do it manually when the DVD is very complex, with a lot of useless VTSs (File -> New DVD, then Import VTST and VTSM, and a lot of manual editing). But in your case, having an useless title doesn't consume disc space, and is not a problem. (However, I usually prefer to renumber the main movie as Title 1, for cosmetic reasons: the title number is shown by the players. Not the number of VTSs.)

[Ghitulescu]

Taking the image into account, I'd rather think the navigation became simple (lots of menus with lots of buttons suggested that most of the non-movie content was removed). Should this be the case, then reauthoring in dvdshrink (with the lose of the menus) should be the simplest solution. I don't see the point of having menus for a single movie with no extras.

[r0lZ]

Hum, I usually prefer a DVD with a menu, even when there is only one movie. You can start the film exactly when you want (read: when you are comfortably sitting in your sofa); a DVD that starts immediately remembers me the old VHS days.
And, my native language being French, I like to keep the audio and subtitle selection menus. The chapter menu might be useful in some cases too.
I think jlrm365 wants to do just that: the movie plus the menu.

Re-authoring with Shrink is a good solution if you need to strip some streams or remove the credits or logos (but it's slower than the PgcEdit method if you want to keep the whole content of the VTST domain), and you can add the original menu manually with PgcEdit but that requires a lot of manual editing anyway.

[jlrm365]

moving VTST 2 to VTST 1 to completely get rid of VTS 2 is more difficult

That is exactly what I wanted to do. That was the reason it was put in the "Advanced" section. One person's "Advanced" is clearly not always another's.

The question was asked not because I needed to. I can certainly do as you suggested and leave things as they are. I just wanted to be tidier and find out how I could go about doing so.

I also prefer to keep a menu for single titles, for the same reasons you stated. I used to strip out the film on its own, and that made life a lot easier, but then I started to miss being able to start on a menu, go back to that menu and to also be able to use a chapter menu and visual audio / subtitle options, rather than just buttons on a remote.

If it's too difficult for there to be a guide, then what would be the simplest way I could learn how - as with my original question - to move one VTS into the space of another / how to replace one with another?

Thanks.

:o
Thanks.

[r0lZ]

As I've said, the method depends of the DVD. But this is a way to do it, that should work without too many problems with many DVDs.

The basic principle is this: we will get rid of the useless title in the VTS with the menu (VTS 1), then replace it with the main movie from VTS 2, and fix the navigation so that the main movie is called in VTS 1 instead of VTS 2.

1. Be sure to move the VTS with the menu at the first position (VTSM 1). Also, the useless Title in that VTS should be Title 2 (and the main movie in VTST 2 should be Title 1). That's easy to do.

If there are commands jumping from VTSM 2 to Title 2 (TTN 1 in VTS 2), or from the VMG to VTSM 2, you are not lucky, as they are the most difficult parts to handle. Since we will remove completely VTS 2 (including VTSM 2), the commands in the called PGCs will be lost, and your DVD will not work as expected. It is theoretically possible to create dummy PGCs in the VMGM or in the VTSM 1 to duplicate the lost commands, and redirect the navigation to that new dummy PGCs, but that's very difficult and time consuming. So, if it's the case, it is probably easier to re-author the DVD from scratch. If it's not the case, go on...

2. You can skip this point is Title 2 is already uncalled.

Examine the commands of Title 2. If some commands (usually post or cell commands) jump to the menu in the same VTS, then you have to replace them with the commands of the menu PGC they are jumping to. For example, if a post-command of Title 2 is:

[30 08 00 00 01 83 00 00] 2 (CallSS) Call the VTSM Root menu of the current VTS, resume cell 1

and if the commands in the RootM PGC of VTS 2 is

[71 00 00 0F 00 01 00 00] 1 Set gprm(15) =(mov) 1
[30 06 00 03 00 C0 00 00] 2 (JumpSS) Jump to VMGM PGC 3

then you have to replace the CallSS with the two commands. (The JumpSS will be converted automatically to a CallSS when you paste it.)
See the note below if you have to replace conditional Jump, Call or Links.

Note that, if the menu commands contain links to other PGCs in the same menu domain, you will have to replace them with the content of the PGC they are jumping to as well. And again if the replacing commands contain links... until there are no links to the same domain any more.

At this point, Title 2 should be independent of the rest of the titleset. You can verify that with the trace. When Title 2 is called, it should return to the VMGM immediately, without calling any other PGC in the same VTS.

Now, Kill Playback of the useless title 2. (Well, killing playback is not really necessary, but that simplify the procedure.) Copy the pre-commands of the Title 2 PGC in the clipboard.

You should now remove all calls to the useless Title 2. (Use Go To Calling Command to locate them.) You have to remove all JumpSS to Title 2 in the VMG and all CallSS to TTN1 in VTSM 1 with the commands you copied in the clipboard.
(Again, see the note if the Jump command is conditional.)

If you have pasted the commands in the VMGM, you should verify if there are SetSTN commands. Since they are illegal in the VMGM, you have to remove them. But if you do so, you might remove the commands that set the default audio and subpic streams to use. (It's sometimes the case when the original commands are called soon after having inserted the DVD.) Fixing this problem is not as easy. Let me know if it's the case with your DVD. However, if Title 2 is a studio logo or a small bonus, you can usually simply delete the SetSTN commands without affecting the navigation too much.

At this point, Title 2 should be uncalled. (Verify with Info -> Find Uncalled PGCs.)

3. Import the main movie in the VTS containing the menu: Select VTST 1, then File -> Replace VTST Titles and select VTS_02_0.IFO from the same folder. (When prompted, select "Move" the VOB files, as you will not need them any more in VTST 2.)

At this point you should have the menu and the movie in VTS 1, and a movie without VOBs in VTST 2.

4. Find all commands jumping to Title 1 in the VMGM. Edit them manually to jump to Title 2.

At this point, Title 1 should be uncalled, and Title 2 should be called again.
The dummy menu in VTSM 2 should also be uncalled.

5. Use DVD -> Delete Uncalled Titlesets (or the slower Delete Uncalled PGCs) to get rid of the now useless VTS 2.
That's all. :)

Note that I wrote this guide with no precise example in mind. I may have forgotten something and you might have to experiment a bit in some cases. But you should now understand the principle.

If that method doesn't work with your DVD, I can explain how to re-author a DVD from scratch, but that's a long manual operation and difficult to explain!


Note:
It is easy to replace a command if that command is not conditional: just select it and Paste Replace.
If the command is conditional, you have to insert two NOPs ather the command, change the original command to a GOTO to the second NOP and invert the condition. For example, if the original command is:

[30 22 00 00 00 01 00 01] 2 if ( gprm(0) == gprm(1) ) then { (JumpTT) Jump to Title 1 }

you should do this:

[00 31 00 00 00 01 00 04] 2 if ( gprm(0) != gprm(1) ) then { Goto line 4 }
[00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00] 3 NOP
[00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00] 4 NOP

and replace the first NOP with the commands in the clipboard.
Note that == has been changed to !=

[jlrm365]

Much appreciated. I'll let you know how it turned out.