Unrelated VOB's merged onto one DVD?

[bongoman31]

I had a guide to do this a few years ago, but have mis-placed it, and have searched to retrieve it, but don't see it. I know it's a basic question, and I think IFO edit is what you use, but how do you merge several unrelated VOB's for burning onto one 4.5g DVD?
Thanks

[Ghitulescu]

any dvd authoring program can do this, eg dvd styler, gui for dvd authoring, tda etc.

[setarip_old]

@bongoman31

Welcome back ;>}

If they're unrelated, they're also quite likely to be NON-identical regarding some video and/or audio aspects, so that you'll have to create them as separate TITLES (rather than chapters) on the same DVD.

I'd suggest you use DVD Flick...

[bongoman31]

Thank you both... I tried Styler, and it didn't quite do as I wanted, probably because I'm not familiar with it. Setarip, you are correct; I will give Flick a try.

Thanks

[setarip_old]

[post content removed - trivial

Setarip - please observe rule 11]

[bongoman31]

I tried Flick, and it worked; but I'm a little confused- it's the same thing that threw me with Styler, because it seems to make the VOB's twice the size after encoding. So, in this process I can get 2 oneGB vob's on one 4.4GB DVD. I'm hoping to get 4 of these onto one DVD- actual size. Why do they have to be bigger? So I kept searching the web and I think found the guide I was originally hoping for http://members.dodo.com.au/~jimmalenko/test.htm
Look, I'm the first to admit being a novice at this, but out of curiosity, can someone explain the difference? (Because I'm pretty sure the IFOedit/ VOBedit technique keeps them the same size- I will try it in the am.)

Thanks
BM

[setarip_old]

Are the original .VOBs either 720x480 or 720x576? - Or are they lower resolution ("half DVD", etc.)?

[bongoman31]

They are full (100%) quality VOB's ripped with DVD Fab payware. Ironically I am stumped on the guide I reference above, which I do remember somewhat the process for using IFOedit and VOBedit, renaming VOB's .001, .002, etc. But the first step in VOBedit doesn't work right, I select file, click join clips and nothing happens, like I'm missing a step. Any help on this appreciated. Thanks

[Ghitulescu]

How about creating a menu (including a play all feature) then import both the menu and the titlesets (VOBs) with pgcedit into a new DVD?

[r0lZ]

Something that isn't explained in the VobEdit/IfoEdit guide is this: the VOB files of all "clips" (in its example, there are two movies) MUST have exactly the same characteristics. For example, you cannot mix PAL and NTSC or 4:3 and 16:9 or full-resolution and half-res material. Also, the streams present in all clips must have exactly the same properties, the same compression codec and parameters, and be in the same order. For example, if the first clip has a 5.1 English AC3 and a 2.0 MPEG audio streams, all VOBs that you want to join must have also the 5.1 and 2.0 audio streams, encoded with the same bitrate and with the same parameters, and in that order. (The language of the stream doesn't matter much, but they should be identical too, or the audio language will change without reason.) Same thing for the subtitle streams. If your VOBs are not compatible, the method explained in the guide will certainly fail.

DVD Flick re-encodes the video and the audio. As a consequence, there is a quality loss, and a change in the size of the VOB files. (The size of the new VOBs can be somewhat controlled, but not in a precise way.) IMO, you should use DVD Flick only to convert AVIs or MPEGs to DVD, but not as a tool to edit or join parts of an existing DVD.

IMO, the easiest way to create compilations of material coming from several DVDs remains DVD Shrink in re-author mode. It will create a different titleset for each title you add to the compilation, and it will create the IFOs so that all clips are played automatically, one after each other. There is no menu, and no easy possibility to skip to the next clip or come back to the previous clip with the remote, but that can easily be added with the DVDShrink plugin for PgcEdit.

The method suggested by Ghitulescu is certainly the more powerful, but creating a menu from scratch is not easy, and you will have to modify the navigation commands yourself. A long process that requires a good knowledge of the DVD-Video format.

[bongoman31]

Thank you very much! That clears up a lot for me. I will try Shrink which I use fairly often. I have only used it with complete DVD rips, not in this manner for what I'm trying to do. I may have mis-judged Shrink, in the sense that I didn't think it worked with an isolated VOB or sets of unrelated VOB's, but I will play with it. I may have a question or two about the procedure, but let me see what I can do on my own, first.
Thanks
BM

[r0lZ]

DVDShrink needs a complete DVD structure, but you can rebuild the IFOs with IfoEdit. No need to join clips with VobEdit. Use "Create IFOs" to create a new DVD structure for each VTS you want to include in the compilation. Then compile the titles you want with DVDShrink. Finally, if you need so, modify the IFOs of the compilation with PgcEdit's DVDShrink plugin, or manually.