Making VTS Files to fit on CR-R

[Newbie10]

I've read through the mandatory and a lot of other posts and the answer to this question seems to elude me. When I follow the instructions to RIP, the only set of files that work when I click the icon are the VTS_*.* files, which run great when I clock on the icon and run on my pc. Problem is, the file size for each one is .9999 gig, which is much too big to fit on a CD-R. None of the CD image or bbmpeg files seem to work using my player. I have the bitrate setting okay but the program appears to ignore what it says about creating X number of disks when the file is X Big. How can I set the program settings so that it creates smaller VTS_ files which can be burned to a CD. Most of you speak a language which I can't understand so please be gentle. My goal is to create disks that will play on a standalone DVD player. Thanks.

I'm using Windows XP with 512 meg memory and PowerDVD. I have an ATI Pro 32meg video card and 70 meg & 7200 RPM speed on my hard drive.

[ammck55]

Newbie10:

What are you trying to rip, and what are you wanting to rip it to? I'll assume that you're ripping DVD's to SVCD. If you don't have it, go to Doom9's Forum>Guides and get the DVD2SVCD guide and check out the newbie reference that's in there too. I don't speak the language either, but that's not necessary in order to make a solid conversion and burn the resulting cue/bin file. You might also want to go to the DVD2SVCD Basic Topics Forum and read the sticky there on making a good post by markrb, he is a forum moderator and wrote the book on this topic. Making a good, solid, intelligent post is your first step towards getting the help that you need, and is indicative of your willingness to make an acceptable effort before reaching out for help. You can also make some magic of your own with the search function, believe me, it WORKS.

If none of this applies to you, don't get offended, as I will have turned into the first syllable in assume.......again. If it does help, roll up your sleeves and go to work! It's all in here, and it is awesome.

Good luck......ammck55

My thanks once again to all the big dawgs. You know who you are.

[Newbie10]

I'm trying to rip the movie Lord of the Rings from my DVD player to create a copy which will play on a standalone CD Player as an emergency backup. It wil take more than one disk I'm sure and that is the problem. If the movie would fit on one disk there would be no problem. I would simply burn the entire VTS file. I have read the tutorials online but I'm still confused. I am obviously missing a step in this process but I couldn't be the only one could I? If so, I apologize but am sure the post will help someone else as well. Thanks

[ammck55]

OK, now we're getting somewhere. First, a little of what I know, and a lof of what I don't. If your first post corresponds to your first rip, you've chosen a tough one to start on. I haven't ripped LOTR's yet, but I have done Band of Brothers and the Sopranos, which have some similarities with your present dilemma. Your're dealing with multiple volumes containing several program chains here, which makes this rip more difficult and a tad more involved than say, a straight 110 minute movie that converts easily after setting all your defaults and making sure you have all the applicable software installed.

It's 2:48 a.m. here, I gotta crash, so I'm not going to look it up for you, but go to the DVD2SVCD Basic Topics Forum, execute a search using the keywords "Lord of the Rings", and stand clear! Look for posts around Thanksgiving, Nov. 25-30, somewhere in there. Moderator Mark has a sterling explanation of program chains in that time frame and how to work with them. Blow by blow. If it were me, I'd consider backing off and getting some easier rips under my belt and becoming more familiar with the tools and procedures, but if you hang in there, you can find all the help you need. Post more concise logs of what you've tried and failed at, and you'll get better help than what I can give you.

See you tomorrow, and good luck

ammck55 (I'll probably dream of Nazguls now!)

[Abond]

@Newbie10
There is too much unclear in your problem.

None of the CD image or bbmpeg files seem to work using my player
How did you make the images, how did you burn them?

I have the bitrate setting okay but the program appears to ignore what it says about creating X number of disks when the file is X Big
Which program?

How can I set the program settings so that it creates smaller VTS_ files which can be burned to a CD.
Which program?

Most of you speak a language which I can't understand so please be gentle
Which language?:D

I have an ATI Pro 32meg video card and 70 meg & 7200 RPM speed on my hard drive.
Your hard drive is VERY small!:D

...create a copy which will play on a standalone CD Player as an emergency backup.
The only standalone CD players I know are Audio CD Players:D

I would simply burn the entire VTS file
There are several VTS files.

I have read the tutorials online but I'm still confused
Because you don't know what is what.
At the end if you burn simply VTS files on CDs this won't work in standalone DVD Player (98%)

[Newbie10]

Thank you all for being patient. I'll try to provide some answers:
I am trying to convert Lord of the Rings to SVCD for playing on a standalone DVD player which plays CD (APEX 600)-Requires multiple disk
Problem: How to make the vts_ files smaller so that they can be copied onto multiple CD-R disks. Below are the settings I used:
Program DVD2svcd ver 1.1.1 build 1
On DVD Rip Tab I have selected Activate DVD Riping and Use VStrip
Subtitles - I checked none (no subtitles)
VCDX Build Tab: D:\Program Files\DVD2SVCD\VCDImager\VCDXBuild.exe
Finalize: Nothing Checked
Misc Tab: Input DVD checked Output MPEG2 Checked
Conversion Tab: Selected 1st IFO Filed on Movie DVD (Lord of Rings @3.0 hours long)
Audio: D:\Program Files\DVD2SVCD\BeSweet\BeSweet.exe
Framesaver Tab: MPEG2Dec\mpeg2dec.dll
Bitrate Tab: CD size all set to 740 ( I have plenty of CD-R's to use up until I learn this)
Encoder Tab: D:\Program Files\DVD2SVCD\TMPGEnc.exe
File to save to: D:\Program Files\DVD2SVCD\Movie
Rate Control Mode: Constant (I'll change this next time based on newbie guide)
Motion Search High Quality (Slow)
DVD2AVE Tab: D:\Program Files\DVD2SVCD\DVD2AVI\DVD2AVI.exe
IDCT Alogorythm: 32 bit SSE MMX

CD Burn Program : Nero 5.0
Playing Program: Power DVD

I realize that 70 meg is not a lot of HD space but I have the image of the movie saved on my D Drive with Room to spare (a little) my running programs are on my C Drive (40 Meg)

I hope the above information answered all of your questions. I will look up Lord of the Rings for tips. Still, don't most movies span more than one CD-R anyway? So what I need is to know how to make the VTS_ files smaller or to know which files I should be trying to burn
CD_Image, bbmpeg, Encoded Video or what.

If I am way in left field let me know and I'll purchase one of those programs that promise to burn automatically. It's just that I usually learn from new challenges but your time is too valuable to waste on a single user. Thanks,

[ArdenDag]

Ok.

First of all, the files you ripped from the CD, which you are calling VTS files, are the .VOB files which contain the DVD playback movie/audio. To take these and burn them on a CD is fruitless, so let's get to step 2.

First, if you haven't, download Gordian Knot. It has a lot of GUI to give you less of a headache. Even if you don't use it currently, you'll end up using it for something :)

Make a DVD2AVI project file from your .VOB files, this will be used to encode your video in a later program. If you intend to make SVCDs of LotR that's going to be a LOT of CDs for a decent quality rip... You can play around with bitrate settings, but I'd go for 3 CDs with LotR, about an hour per CD (you'll get a decent bitrate this way)

I don't know the easiest way to split the DVD2AVI project file into 3 segments without having audio issues, so I'll let someone else explain that part to you :)

The easiest program I know of to encode into VCD/SVCD format is TMPGEnc, fairly easy project wizard, settings, etc. You can load the entire DVD2AVI project file here and manually split it (via Source Range), if you wish, that's what I'd do, but I know someone will chime in with an easier solution :)

You'll also need to convert the .ac3 audio that gets ripped from the DVD into a format TMPGEnc can use, you need a .wav format, and I can't remember offhand if the BeSweet GUI in Gordian Knot can transcode just to .wav format, but I know BeSweet can do that with command line parameters, so... best to get a useful GUI for it ;)

I'm still a n00b, too, so if I've confused you anywhere, just tell me where, I'll try to elaborate :)

[ammck55]

Newbie10:

You gotta end up with .bin/.cue files. When you get these at the end of your conversion, you've got it!

Ardendag: I've yet to use Gordian's Knot, so this question is straight up and not a dig at you. Will it really be easier for Newbie10 to go this route, and what are the pros and cons here? I'm truly eager to learn more of your theory on this!

ammck55

[ArdenDag]

For me, sometimes ease of use is better than the slight (in certain respects) increases in quality/functionality.

TMPGEnc is an nice all-in-one tool for (S)VCD creation (decompression/compression). I love it. But I'm partial for things that I found before better tools on doom9.

Like I said, I'm not someone who's made a lot of SVCDs, so I wouldn't know much about the ins and outs. I'd assume the simpler route might be DVD2SVCD, but I'm always weary about doing something I haven't done yet, so I posted about what I knew ;)

Go here: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21859 and read up, first. Make your choice :)

This is from DVD2SVCD official website:

DVD2SVCD combines many programs together: vStrip to rip the DVD (best ripper around), DVD2AVI to create a DVD2AVI project, Mpeg2dec and Avisynth for the fastest frameserving from DVD2AVI to CCE, BeSweet for high quality audio processing, video encoding in CCE or TMPG, then applying pulldown flag in case of an NTSC video, multiplexing video and audio using bbMPEG and finally creating SVCD images for burning using VCDImager. Furthermore DVD2SVCD supports multiple audio streams and selectable subtitles (the latter only works on standalone players). The program comes as a complete package that contains all the free softwares requires. You only have to add CCE SP or TMPG.

So yeah, you could do it my way, or through DVD2SVCD. The learning curve is steeper my way, but you learn how to do the seperate portions manually, in-case you want to tweak/edit/change/learn along the way :)

[ammck55]

If I am way in left field let me know and I'll purchase one of those programs that promise to burn automatically. It's just that I usually learn from new challenges but your time is too valuable to waste on a single user. Thanks,

I missed this the first time around, but there was a major discussion in the forum recently on these "dummy proof" backup programs that are for sale out there. Purchase one of these, and you may be getting a product that contains ripps from the creators of the very tools that you can get for free here. (And actually get support for.)

Whichever method you choose to continue with, get a guide in your hand and follow it to the letter. No joke. Read up on .bin/.cue's and do your search(es). Read the FAQ's. You've exhibited dogged persistence in the face of adversity, so don't give up. Once you get a few rips down, you'll almost be embarassed by how easy these fine tools are to use.

Ripp it up........ammck55

[Abond]

@Newbie10
Well, OK. Now it is more or less clear. You are creating SVCD using DVD2SVCD with TMPGEnc mpeg encoder.
1. Check if your DVD player can play SVCD at all (http://www.vcdhelp.com/dvdplayers.php search your player model, read also users reports, from the data in our forum APEX AD-600a can play)
2. If the result is positive, burn the cue/bin files with Nero. Open Nero (close the Wizard) click File - select "burn CD image". From pop window select .cue file (not .bin, cue file says to the burning prog how to burn the data which are in .bin). Burn...
3.If you have errors with Nero, download trial of CDRWin and burn the cue/bin with it (the same, you should select .cue file).
Some remarks:
740 is for regular 650MB discs, they can take 740 MB VIDEO data. 800 is for 700MB discs, they can take 800MB video.
I assume your HD is 70 GIG, not 70 meg, 70 meg is less than a CD (700 meg):D
The .bin files in fact content bbMPEG_Muxed_FileXX.mpg files inside. Therefore you can use alone authoring program to create cue/bin from bbMPEG_Muxed_File, but before you should get some experience.
So I wish you good luck. If you have some problems post them here.

[Newbie10]

You guys have done a great job explaining to me what I need to do. I can't thank you enough. I'll try the methods you proposed until I get it right. Hopefully someone else will be helped by this information too. Thanks again. Newbie 10

[ammck55]

@Newbie10: Man, you have a good attitude, and some expert help from Abond to run with now. Post back and let us know how you're doin'.

@Abond: Your last post here was fun to read. I'm getting solid conversions and clean burns, but D2S and Nero do it all for me. It's another story to actually understand the process, and then try to explain it to someone. I still spend a lot of my time wandering around in a confused state, but I have learned several things from you and Ardendag both as a result of being involved with this thread. Thanks.

@Ardendag: I'm going to get GKnot and do some work with it(or try to). You've piqued my curiosity! Thanks.

ammck55

[Newbie10]

Following the advice previously given me in this thread Lord of the Rings burned easily and well using DVD2SVCD and Nero 5.5 Express. It runs great on my Apex 600 Standalone DVD Player. Using Nero to burn the .cue file is the part I didn't understand. I didn't realize that burning the .cue file would identify for Nero what other files to burn but it worked great. Sorry for the delay in responding but I am trouble running it on my CD-Rom. After about 10 minutes the system bogs down. The is NOT the problem of DVD2SVCD however, it is either in my video Card (ATI Rage Pro 128 w/32 meg) or my Lite-On 2401B CD Burner because it works great on my Apex 600 standalone. By the way, the $22-$40 I almost bought did NOT work on my standalone Apex. The sound and video were out of Sync, so learning to use the DVD2SVCD program is definitely worth it. I will post to another forum on my bogging down problem. If other Newbies follow the instuctions in this thread, they should be successful in creating great SVCD's from DVD's. Good Copying!!