how to merge 2 DVD's ?

[cordraconis]

@ Acaila:

You said you are planning to Rip LotR [Extended version].
(Posted in another thread).
As I'm from Belgium, I assume the "package" is also 4 DVD's, just like in the Netherlands. (I haven't seen it yet, but I talked to a friend of mine, and he said the movie spans over the first 2 DVD's.)

Now I am wondering how to rip this... I would want to put everything in 1 DVD-stream (and then convert, and split into 2 or maybe 3 CD's), but I am a bit unsure on how to do that. (DVD-authoring is "just not my cup of tea" :D ). Maybe dump everything on HD and import everything in DVD2AVI and work from there ???
The "Search"-button, didn't really helped me that much.

Any comments are greatly appreciated.

Cordraconis

[Acaila]

Hi,

Yes you are correct the movie span over the first two DVD's. The other two are extra's.
The easy way would be to just rip each DVD to a single CDR. For the first DVD I get about 55% compressibility so that will work out ok. Nothing much can go wrong with this approach and should give you good enough quality. Cutting off the credits on the 2nd DVD will give you quite a boost in quality for that part as it's about 1/4 of the entire 2nd DVD.

However, if you want optimal efficiency and define the cutpoint yourself, then it's going to be much more complicated.
First thing ofcourse would be to copy both DVD's to HD. I always rip audio and video into seperate files with SmartRipper but it shouldn't really matter either way. Create .d2v's as usual and import them into Avisynth. There's a few transition frames at the end of the first and beginning of the second DVD which you have to get rid of to avoid audio getting out of sync (if these weren't there merging the two DVD's would be difficult at all). So load the avisynth into VDub to determine the range of the video you want (cutting the transition frames and maybe credits and leading trailers as well), insert Trim() commands in Avisynth to select this range. Now with these frame ranges you can cut the audio with BeSweet or HeadAC3he to match the video.
Do this for both DVD's, add the 2nd part to the first part in the .avs and encode the entire movie as you would normally. The only problem now would be to merge the two audio streams, and I'm not sure how coz I never do this. I assume BeSweet can do this somehow, but I'm not sure. Can someone else give a clue to this?
Mux together with Nandub when you get the two audio files joined as one.

I must admit, reading back what I just wrote might seem a bit cryptic to some (maybe to all, hehe). Please ask if you need any part clarified :).

What I intend to do (if I even rip it, because the movie is just SO GOOD that putting it on CD's seems like a waste), is just rip each part on 1 CDR. Using the 2 channel AC3 audio stream should still give me very nice quality overall.

EDIT: Just found a thread that might be interesting concerning the joining of AC3's: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=37010&highlight=merge+ac3. Anyway, just do a search for "merge AC3" should give you an answer.

[DJ Bobo]

I havn't ripped that LotR thing yet, but isn't it easy enough to just load all VOBs from the 1st and 2nd DVD in DVD2AVI in the right order, set audio to demux and save the project?!
Won't that work?!

And then at the very end, after encoding and muxing, cut the frames that aren't needed.
Won't that work?!

[Acaila]

The problem with cutting afterwards is the positions of keyframes. So yes if the part you want to cut out is flanked by keyframes then it will work, otherwise you'll have to go the hard way.

And I tend to view things from the general-always-working direction instead of the if-this-is-the-case-then-there-is-an-easier-way direction, which is why I wrote the previous. But thanks for pointing out your shortcut.

[jimbokoz]

I recently made a rip of LOTR extended edition spanning 2 discs... here's how I merged it to make a 3 CD XVID + AC3 rip...

Step 1: Rip using your favourite ripper. Strip out the audio tracks, save the AC3 soundtrack to a separate file, and leave the video + subtitles in the vobs (for VobSub to use later for Elvish!).. Decode both disks.

Step 2: Audio.. merge the two AC3 soundtracks to one file using BeSplit.... there are guides on this if u search around.

Step 3: Setup an AVISynth script:

Example:

LoadPlugin("MPEG2DEC.dll")
LoadPlugin("VobSub.dll")
disc1 {
MPEG2Source("disc1.d2v")
VobSub("subtitles-1.idx")
}
disc2 {
MPEG2Source("disc2.d2v")
VobSub(subtitles-2.idx")
}
alignedsplice(disc1,disc2)
crop(x,x,x,x)
BilinearResize(x,x,x,x)


The script above (once fixed for syntax errors I've inadvertently made!) will load both DVD's with subtitles burned in, and stick one after the other...

of course, you will need to setup VobSub separately - use Gordian Knot (easiest)..

Step 4:

Load your .avs into VirtualDub - check the subtitles are aligned, and also check the join point...
In the version I encoded, 22 black frames appeared between the two DVD's, and there was no corresponding portion in the audio. Delete every frame using VirtualDub's editing tools, or in the 2nd section, the audio will be unaligned. Also, as a result, XVID didn't properly insert a keyframe at the start of the 2nd DVD unless I deleted the empty frames...


Hope that helps - good luck...

EDIT:

To make it easier - here's the method for BeSplit...

1st - make a file list:

textfile: audio.lst
containing:
audio1.ac3
audio2.ac3
in two lines only with the full path.

then, open up a command window and type:

Besplit.exe -core( -input audio.lst -prefix audioout.ac3 -type ac3 -join )

Worked for me!