How do I split a DVD with four one hour episodes?

[snidely]

Ok, I would like to take the Star Trek: The Next Generation series of DVDs, which contain 4 one hour episodes per DVD 9 and split them to 2 DVD-Rs. It is easy enough to split the DVD using IfoEdit, but then the menu on the second DVD uses the same buttons as on the first side to launch the episodes, presumably because the PGCs have been renumbered (just like the chapters are renumbered on a split movie). Is there a place in IfoEdit where I can reassign a menu button to point at a different PGC, or, as an alternative, is there another way to split the DVD as to not change the PGC numbering?

[snidely]

Thanks, Derrow, but the R1 version does not look the same as yours. Here is the format:

VIDEO_TS.BUP
VIDEO_TS.IFO
VIDEO_TS.VOB
VTS_01_0.BUP
VTS_01_0.IFO
VTS_01_0.VOB
VTS_01_1.VOB
VTS_02_0.BUP
VTS_02_0.IFO
VTS_02_0.VOB - Contains main menu for all 4 episodes
VTS_02_1.VOB - All four episodes are in these 8 Vobs
VTS_02_2.VOB
VTS_02_3.VOB
VTS_02_4.VOB
VTS_02_5.VOB
VTS_02_6.VOB
VTS_02_7.VOB
VTS_02_8.VOB

I can split the Vobs so that 2 episodes are on each disc, but the problem comes in when trying to use the menu to launch the episodes. For example, if episodes 1 and 3 are on one disc, and 2 and 4 are on the other disc, the menu always uses the buttons for 1 and 3 on both discs. I would like to use the correct buttons to launch the correct episodes on both discs, if that is possible. The problem seems to be that there are 4 PGCs, one for each chapter, and the menu buttons each point to a different PGC. When the orignal disc is split, the second disc starts with PGC 1 and PGC 2 all over again, rather then labeling them PGC 3 and PGC 4, like they were on the original.

A similar problem occurs when splitting a movie onto 2 discs. If the movie has 30 chapters, for example, and there are 12 chapters on disc one and 18 chapters on disc 2, then the chapters on disc 2 are labeled 1 through 18, rather than the correct numbers of 19 through 30. Is there a way to renumber the chapters on the second disc to 19 through 30? Or any other way around this?

[Derrow]

Ah, I see.
Okay R1 seems to be a bit difficult.

Have you tried a simple Vob-ID stripping with IfoEdit ?

I guess each episode has its own VobID, so if you just strip the VobIDs of episode 1 & 2 out, then it should work properly for episode 3 and 4.

[snidely]

Yes, I see the light :)

Here's the breakdown of Vob IDs:

Episode 1: 1 - 8
Episode 2: 9 - 16
Episode 3: 17 - 25
Episode 4: 26 - 34

So if I strip out Vob IDs 1 - 16, then disc 2 will now have Vob Ids 17 - 34, and then the menu will now work correctly, right? I'm going to try it out right now.

Thanks, Derrow....you rock!

[Derrow]

Originally posted by snidely

So if I strip out Vob IDs 1 - 16, then disc 2 will now have Vob Ids 17 - 34, and then the menu will now work correctly, right? I'm going to try it out right now.


Right, and the IFO gets adjusted aswell, so it should play properly (I hope :))

[snidely]

Nope, it didn't work. When I stripped out Vob IDs 1 - 16, IfoEdit renumbered Vob IDs 17 - 34 to 1 - 18, rather than leaving them at their "old" numbers, leaving me with two discs like this:

Disc one:

PGC 1: VOB IDs 1 - 8 (these are correct and work fine)
PGC 2: VOB IDs 9 - 16
PGC 3: No VOB IDs
PGC 4: No VOB IDs

Disc two:

PGC 1: No VOB IDs
PGC 2: No VOB IDs
PGC 3: VOB IDs 1 - 9 (these PGCs are launched by the wrong menu buttons)
PGC 4: VOB IDs 10 - 18

The original disc was like this:

PGC 1: VOB IDs 1 - 8
PGC 2: VOB IDs 9 - 16
PGC 3: VOB IDs 17 - 25
PGC 4: VOB IDs 26 - 34

Does IfoEdit have the capacity to relabel the VOB IDs on disc two back to their original numbers? Or is there any way to make the menu buttons point to the new VOB IDs?

If IfoEdit were able to split a disc in two and keep all of the information from being relabeled (like chapters, VOB IDs, etc.), then the episode buttons in the main menu and chapter buttons in the chapter menu would probably all work just fine, don't you think? I'm not a programmer, so my logic could certainly be flawed :)

[Derrow]

Originally posted by snidely
Nope, it didn't work. When I stripped out Vob IDs 1 - 16, IfoEdit renumbered Vob IDs 17 - 34 to 1 - 18, rather than leaving them at their "old" numbers.

Right, they get renumberd in the VOB files and in the IFO aswell.
So it shouldn't matter, since the menu-buttons jump to PGC's, not to VOB-IDs.

Originally posted by snidely
Does IfoEdit have the capacity to relabel the VOB IDs on disc two back to their original numbers? Or is there any way to make the menu buttons point to the new VOB IDs?


No, they can't be renamed back.
I guess the problem now are, 2 empty PGC's. I need a look at the IFO files. Can you send me all original IFO files of one TNG disc?

[Derrow]

I've got an idea.
Don't strip all VOB-IDs of one PGC. Keep at least one VOB-ID, to avoid empty PGCs.

So in that case strip the VOB-IDs for
Disc1: 2-8 and 10-16
Disc2: 18-25 and 27-34

Lets see if this does the trick.

[snidely]

Derrow, it worked like a charm! I did exactly as you said, and the menu now functions just fine. I am going to experiment further to see if I must retain the first Vob ID from the missing episodes, or if I can just keep any Vob ID. The first Vob ID is not necessarily the smallest, so it would be nice to just pick the smallest one, if that will work just as well.

Derrow comes through again!!

[joshua]

On the multi-PGC disc I was working on I could not get this system to work.
Each episode(being a seperate PGC) had two Vob Id`s
ie PGC 1 : vob id 1 + 5
PGC 2 : vob id 2 + 5
PGC 3 : vob id 3 + 5
PGC 4 : vob id 4 + 5

So I did try stripping off say for the first disc vob id`s 3 and 4,

But Ifoedit gave me chapter errors when it came back to playing the VOB`s in it`s DVD player.
What do you think I should try next?
Being working on this one now for about 2 weeks, tried all the usual stuff.
Oh yeah, normally I would just split off all the extras etc and do what I call a "just movie" backup, but this disc is all on the same VTS_01_xx.vob listing, with menu and everything.

[Drylook]

Originally posted by snidely
A similar problem occurs when splitting a movie onto 2 discs. If the movie has 30 chapters, for example, and there are 12 chapters on disc one and 18 chapters on disc 2, then the chapters on disc 2 are labeled 1 through 18, rather than the correct numbers of 13 through 30. Is there a way to renumber the chapters on the second disc to 13 through 30? Or any other way around this?

I also can't solve this problem. What happens is that if you try to use the menu on disc 2 to navigate through the chapters, they are all messed up (on the above example - menu ch 2 shows ch 14,...,menu ch 18 will show ch 30, and all menu ch after that - 19 to 30 - will all show ch 13 - the first one on the disc).

Can anyone help???

[skutny]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by snidely
[B]Derrow, it worked like a charm! I did exactly as you said, and the menu now functions just fine

Snidely

Could I ask you to detail what you did to get the menus to work on two seperate DVD's

I'm tring to do that with the 'World is a Stooge' butI can't get it right.
:confused:

[hoops10]

@snidely

Why did you decide to split the episodes to 2 DVD-r's? Why not just encode them using CCE and make them fit onto 1 DVD-r?

[skutny]

Originally posted by Derrow
I've got an idea.
Don't strip all VOB-IDs of one PGC. Keep at least one VOB-ID, to avoid empty PGCs.

So in that case strip the VOB-IDs for
Disc1: 2-8 and 10-16
Disc2: 18-25 and 27-34

Lets see if this does the trick.


Derrow

Is this correct?

1) Rip DVD I used Smartripper (Backup option)
2) Run IfoEdit load VTS_02_0.IFO
3) Click on VOB extras
4) Set destination directory (for DVD 2)and check all boxes except for remux
5) Check language and subtitle boxes that I want to keep.
:confused: Where I get lost.:confused:

6a) (DVD1) Check boxes 1-16, 17, 26 (the first VOB-ID for Episode 3 and 4.)
6b) (DVD2) Check boxes on VOB-ID 1, 9, 17-34 (the first VOB-ID for Episode 1 and 2.)

7) Strip it.

IfoEdit creates VTS_01_x.VOBs

6) For DVD 2 rename the created VTS_01... to VTS_02...
7) Copy from backup the
VIDEO_TS.BUP
VIDEO_TS.IFO
VIDEO_TS.VOB
VTS_01_0.BUP
VTS_01_0.IFO
VTS_01_0.VOB
VTS_01_1.VOB to DVD 2 directory
8) In IfoEdit do a Get VTS sector on all IFO
9) save all IFO

Done, ready to burn DVD 2?:confused:

If this is the correct procedure will the end result be that, when DVD 1 is inserted the menu will play and if episode 3 is selected it will play the VOB-ID 17 and return to the menu and if episode 1 is selcted it'll play the whole episode and return to the menu?

I'm sorry if it's too lengthy but I have a simple mind that gets confused easily.

Thanks, skutny :D

[Derrow]

Yep, everything sounds perfect, except for this:

Originally posted by skutny

4) and check all boxes except for remux


I wouldn't check the box 'Create new IFO files', cause then you will not have the original menu.
But rest is completly okay.

[joshua]

ok this is a little guide for people trying to backup a disc that has multiple pgc`s, but they are only identified by one maybe two vob id`s. This method is to get just the movie/episode, with no menu.

ok, using DVDDecrypter 3.1.1.0 , open up the disc you are doing then select IFO mode.
Select the PGC that contains the first episode (will have a time there for you, to help you guess), then make sure the other PGC chapters for the other episodes are NOT selected. Rip this PGC to a file called PGC 1
Then do the same for the next PGC, making sure to de-select the FIRST PGC and selected ONLY the second PGC, strip this to a folder called PGC 2.
*on a quick note, at this point if you total up the size of the VOB`s for both these files will tell you if you can fit any more PGC`s on one disc.
After you have about 4 gigs worth of VOB`s in your files time to merge them together.
Create a folder called Mixed PGC`s.
Open the first PGC folder and re-name the vob files to Vts_01_001 for the Vts_01_1 file and so on, then move these to the mixed PGC`s folder.
Open the second PGC folder and rename them also in numerical order with the first set (you may have to name Vts_01_1 to Vts_01_003 if you know what I mean), then move these files to mixed PGC`s folder.

Then open VobEdit and open up the first Vts file from the mixed PGC`s folder, after that go to "Edit" and then down to "Join Clips" , it will then ask you were you want to save the merged Vts file to, I merge them into a file called "Joined clips", it will then ask you to pick the number for the first Vob Id, just click 1 and then enter.
It will now merge you Vts files.

After this we have to create Ifo`s,
Open Ifoedit and click "create Ifo`s", find location of joined Vts files and open it then click "save" to save the VIDEO_TS Ifo file to the same folder, it will then save the newly created .Ifo files to the joined clips folder.
Last step is to "Get VTS Sectors" with IfoEdit for these new .ifo files.

On one last note, sometimes when you use this method it adds some funny vob ids that are like 15 secs long or whatever, just strip out these extra Vob id`s the usual way.
Hope this helps people
:-)
What you think Derrow, good ?

[skutny]

I ripped the DVD with region free and macrovision using smartripper 2.41. (I also tried it with region free and macrovision unchecked)

Used ifoEdit 0.932 and followed my guide 2 posts ago to create 2 directories one for the first two episodes and another for the next two episodes with menus.

Did the getVTSsector, saved and played on PowerDVD, got the blue screen wrong region comment.

Using IfoEdit I did region free for all 3 IFO's and re-saved each IFO, still got the blue screen wrong region comment.

Re-created the IFO's and did a region free on VIDEO_TS only and tested in PowerDVD I was able to play the both two episodes DVDs correctly.

When I loaded the AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS directories into Prassi, it burned only 1 meg, only the directory entry with the right size, but when I played the DVD in PowerDVD it said 'error: file not found. With Explorer the files and files size were correct but doing a properties on the DVD said 1 meg. (Luckily I was using RW's)

I tried it with 2 different episodes and still the same.

Did Paramount hide something in the ST TNG DVD R1?

Any Clues anyone?

EDIT: I noticed that when I tried to play the DVD file in IfoEdit a waning message said '*No valid DVD-Video volume could be located - Do you still wnt to continue?'
:confused:

[Blackhawksq]

Wow! i can finally post! I've been trying to get this done for awhile and have been trying to post a question for the past 5 days. un/foruntaly it took to long and I got it figured out myself. Heres what I did. This keep the menus in the right order also:1. rip the dvd
2. open IFOEdit and select the IFO file in this case vts_03.ifo
3. Go into vobextras and make these changes:
Under options:
Correct VOb unit
Correct IFo table
split to 2 dvds
are all the needs to be checked
under vob file options everything except Adjust IIvu/angle pointer (which seems to be greyed out needs to be checked).
4. Set the Dvd directories.
5. Click OK and select the vob ID right before the 3 PGC (assuming it's 4 pgc's which it seems to be in most cases). It'll look like this:
PGC_3 program change VobID...
Select the one above that.
6. besure the 2 boxes below are checked and click split it.
7. after thats done close it and go into windows explorer. Under dvd1/video_Ts you'll see you're vts_03_xx starting at one. Now copy everything thats not in there over to this folder. In my case I copied VTS_ts.* vts_01_xx.* Vts_02_xx.* vts_03_0.vob (holds the menu) and vts_04_xx.*. You probably only need to copy vts_ts, vts_o1 and vts_03_0.vob but I did them all and it worked. copy these to BOTH directories
8. Now re-open ifoedit and open dvd1\vts_Ts.ifo and run the remove p-up, region free and then get vts sectors. close it, reopen it and do the same for dvd2 now you're ready to copy. It'll keep the menus the same as it is supposed to be

[dvd_maniac]

I tried to rip each episode with smartripper 2.41 seperately. I used the strip stream option and ripped each episode's m2v file and 2ch ac3 file into a seperate folder. I renamed each m2v and ac3 file for each episode to match each other and imported them to dvdit 2.5 pe and it keeps freezing up when I import the second episode. I also tried to remux the files together into a mpeg-2 file with tmpgenc's mpeg tools and import the resulting file into dvdit and I get no audio? Am I on the right track or wasting my time? I want just the episodes, don't care about the menus. and the easiest way would be the best...

[Blackhawksq]

Well I use dvddecrypter and rip the whole dvd. Then use IFOedit 0.93 to split the dvd. Use my guide that I posted. I told you everything you need to have checked don't check anything else. follow it and it should work.

[dvd_maniac]

I did everything exactly as you wrote in your post. And the end result is that ifoedit player and power dvd both say that "this player is incompatible with the region marking of this disc"
what could make this happen? Per your guide I hit the region free button and selected region 1 as I am in the US.
I cheked the folder with decrypter ifo tools and it said it was region 1, so I don't get the problem...

[Blackhawksq]

Hmm got me. One thing I forgot to put but I don't think it is necessary I cut the VIDEO_TS folder out of the dvd# folder and put it into the root directory before I do the final step. I.E. Remove p-ups, region free and get vts. I don't know if this is necessary or notfor some reason I don't think it is. You can always skip the region free part.

[golfextreme]

I've always had problems trying to get the region free through ifoedit. I just use dvddecrypter, go under tools, and use the region patch. I just highlight all the ifos and bups, and let it correct them, no problem.

[Geoque]

dvd_maniac

I was having very similar problems to what you are describing with the region code and prassi burning. I followed Blackhawksq's method for everything except region free. For that I followed golfextreme's advice and used DVD Decrypter. That took care of the region code problem. Then came the prassi burning broblem. It showed 99% of the burning time was dedicated to finalizing the disc. That did not seem at all proper. What I did was use Maestro to create a DVD image then used Maestro again to burn the image I created. It now works on my apex 1500 standalone player with menu buttons pointing to proper episodes. I have not used the image creation tool in IfoEdit, so I don't know if that will work. I don't see why it shouldn't.

By the way, I made it region free in dvd decrypter before splitting the vob's, if that matters. Hope this helps.

[wanderance]

Well, after many attempts, I still can't split the Sopranos into 2 dvd-r's. No matter where I put the split point, it shoves all the vob's onto disc 1.

About to give up on this one..

[tomti]

I have similar problems with XFILES region 2. I tried a lot of things seen here.
If someone could help it would be appreciated. Maybe i could then send the ifo files.

Thanks.

[Yannis]

My Season 4, PAL version does not have the same structure as the one mentioned here. In short, I have the following files:

VTS_01_?.* //just some starting screens
VTS_02_?.* //first two episodes (the main menu is on VTS_02_0.VOB)
VTS_03_?.*
VTS_04_?.* //last two episodes
VTS_05_?.*

So it is much straightforward: Disk 1 contains all files but VTS_0{4|5}_?.* and is fine (unless obvously you ask it to play one of the last two episodes.
For the second disk, I copy the VTS_0{4|5}_?.* files and, in addition to the main IFOs and VTS_01_?.*, I also copy the VTS_0{2|3}_0.{IFO|VOB} from the first two episodes. The VTS_02_0.VOB hold the main menu, while the VTS_03_0.VOB, just the episode menu (both very small).

IFOEdit is only finally needed for the vts sectors.

Nero in the first disk, throws an exception, but then it works fine (I simply do "discard" and "write" again). In the second disk, since the main movie VOBs (e.g. VTS_02_1.VOB) from the first two episodes are missing, it complains about failed re-allocation (well... this is typical of Nero:-). But I also proceed.
Both disks play fine on a standalone (happy end).

I know the above is much simpler than what is described in this thread, but has anybody got same dvd structure and/or similar problem with Nero?

[Manazoid]

Do as Blackhawksq suggests with one exception. On a 4 episode DVD set the split point just after PGC3 not before.

Engage warp factor 9...