Recovering chapters from title -- PGC/PPT has full title in 1st Ch, then 9 empties

[JMThomas]

I ripped this DVD and it plays fine, except for the scene (chapter) selection menu. Selecting chapter 1 starts at the beginning of the title. Selecting any of the other 8 chapters plays something for a fraction of a second, then jumps back to the main menu.


Looking at it with PGCedit, the PGC for the title has 10 chapters. Chapter 1 is 92 minutes -- the entire title. The Entry VOBU sector is 5.

Chapters 2-10 are 00:00:00.15 seconds each. Chapter 2 Entry VOBU sector is 1960815. Chapters 3-9 Entry VOBUs increment the previous chapter by only 5 sectors.

Chapter 10 is has Entry VOBU sector 0 (for 5 sectors). (I'm not sure why the PGC has 1 more chapter than the chapter menu.)


Inspecting the VOB, I see a zillion NAVpacks for VOB1/Cell1, ending with 8 tiny NAVpacks for VOB1/Cell2, VOB1/Cell3, etc...


One easy way to get this problem is re-muxing, but I swear I personally never re-muxed this DVD -- it came this way from the (professional) authoring service. ALL I did was rip it.


I can watch the title and write down starting times (+/- a minute?) where I think the chapters should start.


What I need is a strategy for rebuilding the VOB so the first big cell is distributed into the 8 tiny cells at my chosen time marks.


Perhaps I could build a celltimes.txt, and then use VOBblanker to rebuild the VOBs?

What is is the value of the number in celltimes.txt, and how can I pick ones that match Navpack boundaries, or does it matter?


Perhaps there's an authoring tool that would allow me to visually mark where the chapters start, and then it would rebuild the vobs/ifos?


Any other ideas that won't take a week of work? :sly:

Thanks!

[JMThomas]

VOBblanker seems to do this, with PGCedit cleanup.

Open the DVD, select the titleset VOB, then in the lower window, select the PGC, click cells.

In the Cells in Title window, select the big cell, and (on the right side) click "Split".

This opens up a visual editor where you can mark the splits.

After you close the editor, blank any tiny cells.

After the VOB is processed, use PGCedit to clean up the PGC and PPT. Correct number of chapters and remove "empty" cells from the table. Don't forget to keep the menus in sync if the number of chapters change.

[Ghitulescu]

1. are you sure it's the fault of the authoring process, or maybe some copy protection interfered with the ripping? Maybe the ripper was defective, maybe the file itself had an error .... a good trick is to watch the DVD on a standalone and see what's going on, in the end the DVDs were designed to be played on standalones ...

2. the last cell (without a chapter) is useful to help skipping to the end of the movie (to skip eg the credits, in particular if some PUOs prevent you from calling the menu)...

[manono]

The usual procedure to fix this sort of thing is first to demux using PGCDemux. Then redo the celltimes.txt using frame numbers (29.97fps frame numbers for NTSC, 25fps frame numbers for PAL), and remux using Muxman. Put the reauthored DVD back into the original using VobBlanker.