Getting Rid of Movie Intros Guide

[2COOL]

Getting Rid of Movie Intros Guide

Soooo,here's the scenario. You have company logos and other crap embedded in your first chapter, prior to your movie actually starts? You find that bothersome and you want to bypass them. Sometimes, these menu intros don't even reside in their own cells. Here's a sure way of getting the accurate start entry point so that when you press Play, it starts playing the movie. I take no credit for this method. To the best of my knowledge, credits should go to VidHack.

NOTE: This procedure will NOT strip your menu-intros out. It is used to set a new starting entry point on when actual movie begins.

Courtesy of 2C:cool::cool:L

Tools I used:
IFOedit 0.95
DVD2AVI 1.76 & VOBrator 0.2 Beta.
Wordpad or Text Editor
Scientific Calculator (Windows or personal)

NOTE: This guide is in assumption that your movie (widescreen or fullscreen) resides in VTS_01_*. Substitute VTS_01_* your actual titleset, VTS_*_* in this guide if it's not.
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1. Open VTS_01_1.vob with DVD2AVI.
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2. Delete all other following VOBs from File list. We only need to keep VTS_01_1.VOB.
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3. Movie, with no sound, will appear in viewing area. Dragging the bottom slide bar and using the < and > buttons for fine tuning, get to a black part that is just before the movie actually starts. When you get that spot you want, press the “[” button located at bottom right. This sets the movie start point.
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4. Save Project to your movie folder as filename “no intro”. After save is done, you will have a D2V and AC3 file present.
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5. Close DVD2AVI.
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6. Open Wordpad or a text editor. With “File of types” dropdown menu set to “All documents (*.*)”, open “no intro.d2v”.
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7. Find and view this line: Location=0,A,0,B. This is just an example. The second position, represented by "A", zero is your start hex value and the fourth position, "B", is your end hex value. Positions 1 and 3 are normally zeroes.

Since we are just dealing with the menu-intros, write down your start value.
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8. Open up your Scientific Calculator in Windows and select Hex (hexadecimal) mode.
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9. Input your start value you wrote down.
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10. Switch to dec (decimal) mode and the value changes.
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11. Write this number down and close calculator.
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12. Using IFOedit 0,95, go to VTS_01_0.IFO/VTS_PGCITI/VTS_PGC_1/Cell Playback section.

Normally, the movie is located in VTS_PGC_1. In Cell 1 section, your entry start points is normally a value of 0. Change that value to the value you wrote down in step 11. Do this by double-left clicking on line.
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13. Save VTS_01_0.IFO
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14. Get VTS Sectors. I do it out of habit.
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15. Preview and test.
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This method is also used in cutting credits out. Refer to my "Signs" cheat sheets, steps 14 to 30, for guidance. Here's the link. Signs (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=43138)

[timewaster]

I just tried this and when I played back the move from IFOEdit, it freezes. Anyone else tried this and had success?

[timewaster]

After splitting about a boy, i tried to make disc2 start by playing the movie instead of the menu. I did this by changing the precommand to jumpto titleset 1, title1, rootmenu, but it still plays the menu.
Anyone know how to fix this?

[htc10825]

@timewaster
dont waster your time, just use InstantCopy 7.0 to shrink the movie to 1 disc. Make your life easier.

[htc10825]

@2CooL
instead of the dvd2avi etc. way, just double click on the line containing "cell 1" in VTS_01_0.IFO root pannel of IfoEdit. You'll see a preview window, use the slide bar to navigation to the real movie starting point. Get the sector address displayed above the preview picture. Then go on with your guide step 12.

So the steps 1. -11. can be simplifed to ONE step.

2CooL, you are very cool. But keep on good working!
EDIT: I've deleted some words(in above line) which someone was not amused with it.

[2COOL]

Originally posted by timewaster
After splitting about a boy, i tried to make disc2 start by playing the movie instead of the menu. I did this by changing the precommand to jumpto titleset 1, title1, rootmenu, but it still plays the menu.
Anyone know how to fix this?

Don't do a (JumpSS_VTSM) Jump to Titleset Menu.:( You'll just get your menu again. Do a (Jump_TT) Jump to Title and make your value "1". I'm assuming your movie is in Titleset 1. This will play your movie first.:D

[2COOL]

[EDITED]

[htc10825]

I found the nick funny so made joke with it. It is nothing evil. If you feel it that "like a flame towards my well-being" so sorry for it and I'll deleted it. But you've ignored that I appreciated your good works a lot in the two previours posts. How do you explain it?
If someone makes a trivial thing so big and quote the forum rulez etc. as answer at once ... I would say it is not the best proof of coolness.
We do discuss here "just for fun" so let's keep on discovering more hidden secrets of IfoEdit that were left by Derrow.

[2COOL]

Originally posted by htc10825
But you've ignored that I appreciated your good works a lot in the two previours posts. How do you explain it?.

@htc10825

Don't worry about it.:D I was totally dead tired last night to remember every person who gave a nice reply to me. My apologies. Got some sleep. I'm really a nice person so again, thanks for the tip.;)I'm always open for suggestions.

[TomBrooklyn]

Hi 2Cool,
I want to remove the FBI and copyright stuff. I ripped with DeCrypter in File Mode. I open the file with IfoEdit. All I see are line of text. I can't tell what is what. How am I supposed to know what to delete? Thanks.

I press DVD Preview and a pop up says I need mpeg2 decoder. I thought I had one of them installed somewhere on my computer already. I can view DVDs in Shrink or in VLC media player. What do I have to do to view dvd in ifoedit so I can tell what I want to remove?

[jeanl]

TomBrooklyn
There are much better tools than IFOEdit available now to do that kind of stuff:
- Vobblanker (check out the guides here (http://jsoto.posunplugged.com/guides.htm))
- PgcEdit (guides here (http://www.videohelp.com/%7Er0lZ/pgcedit/index.html) and these two (http://jean.laroche.free.fr/) to do exactly what you want...

jeanl

[TomBrooklyn]

Hi jean,
I tried to get the first Pgc guide you said was "here" but that guide has a menu but no content under any of the menu sections.

I started using your guide though. BTW, in your guide it seems under section 4 that I have to leave Trace Mode to retore the icons on top where I can select the "Kill Playback" button. Then I have to restore Trace Mode to select "Next PB". You didn't mention that so I wondered if I did something wrong or suboptimally.

Also in Section 3, you say to select "No" to the offer to mark the PGC as having no cells/programs. Would that remove the section to allow more space for the main movie?

Another question I have is I came up on a trailer for some other movies. I had set this to still picture in Shrink on the burn I did before. I went to kill it in Pgc and it shows it has five buttons. I got a warning about the buttons when I selected to kill it, so I didn't kill it. However, that trailer has no buttons. I know that from watching the original.

[CoNS]

Removing unwanted material has been discussed a lot here in this forum in previous threads.

You may want to check out this thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=102787). (see my first reply in that thread for a overview of the various methods)

[TomBrooklyn]

OK CoNS, thanks. I think I want Vob for my current application anyway as I'd rather remove the material then just bypass it.

[TomBrooklyn]

Vobblanker (check out the guides here (http://jsoto.posunplugged.com/guides.htm))
Thanks for the links jeanl. I'm looking at these guides. But they assume the reader has a considerable amount of previous knowledge. They're filled with technical terms and acronyms I dont' even understand.

For instance, right off the bat there are the two guide titles, one for blanking and one for cutting, but there is no description of what 'blanking' and 'cutting 'mean.' For the moment, I am assuming they mean the common definition of the words and that blanking means you won't see the section but is is not removed, and cutting mean the section is removed.

Then for instance, check out this second sentance from the guide on blanking:

"Change post into precomm (Safely): Change postcommands into recommends when blanking titles. Safely means do it only if there aren’t cell commands in the PGC."

I don't know what a postcommand or pre command is. I think I know what a title is from seeing them in DVD Shrink. I don't know what a cell command or PGC are.

All I want to do is cut out some parts of the movie that I don't want to see.

Any more basic help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

[Dimad]

All I want to do is cut out some parts of the movie that I don't want to see. Is there a guide that a normal intelligent person with little or no prior knowledge of DVD copying can understand? [/rant]

Any basic help would be much appreciated. For starters, do I want to cut or blank? Thanks.
Check this one out: http://www.dimadsoft.com/dvdremake/ud_dg_04.php

[TomBrooklyn]

Hi Dimad,
That looks nice but I was hoping to be able to do it with freeware or donorware.

BTW, I processed the files, ran it through Shrink, and it didn't work. Nothing was gone.

TomBk

[Groasnicu']

Hi TomBrooklyn,

First of all read forum rules, especialy
1) Read up before asking! There are tons of guides, FAQs and each forum has a dedicated Q&A thread with additional info.

1a) Use the search function before posting. Chances are your question has already been answered.

and second freeware & donorware is made, generaly, by one person not by corporation resulting a small interface.

If you want something easier to use, with a good visual interface, in generaly you have to pay.

[laserfan]

...All I want to do is cut out some parts of the movie that I don't want to see...You are asking for a freeware program that makes this Trivial to do, and there just ain't none, sorry! DVDs are basically specially-constructed video files (VOBs), with instructions to players(IFOs) for how to play them.

So you can't muck with the videos without also making sure the instructions still work, and vice-versa.

The simplest way to avoid warnings & such is to use DVD Shrink and backup in Re-Author mode w/only the movie and soundtracks/subtitles you want. But if you want to retain the complete menu structure yet avoid certain elements of the complete DVD then you will have to learn PgcEdit or IfoEdit or one of the other (all pretty complex) tools, along with some of the terminology involved.

[CoNS]

Well... As laserfan wrote, unfortunately there's no freeware tool that allows you to remove unwanted material easily. The creation of such a tool has previously been discussed in this thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=93549), but none of the DVD programming wizards in the forum got hooked!

However, do not dispair! Removing unwanted material using freeware tools can certainly be done, and like most other things in life it's actually quite easy to do, as soon as you know how to do it! :)

Here's a very basic overview:

First of all you need to find out where in the DVD structure the unwanted material is located. To do this you need to understand how a video DVD is structured: The files in the VIDEO_TS folder don't give you much useful info about this, other than you can see that all DVDs consist of two parts: VMG (Video ManaGer, located in the VIDEO_TS.xxx files) and one or more VTS (Video TitleSets, located in the VTS_xx_x.xx files).

The VMG is the "entry point" of the DVD. It may contain menus (i.e. it has a "menu domain", called VMGM). A VTS can contain both menus (in the menu domain, called VTSM) and titles (in the title domain, called VTST).

In the VIDEO_TS folder, the VTS_xx_0.VOB file contains the menu domain of the current VTS, and the title domain is located in VTS_xx_1.VOB, VTS_xx_2.VOB and so on. The VTS_xx_0.IFO file holds the information for all of those VOB files in the current VTS.

The VOB (Video OBject) files contain the video, audio and subtitle streams. The IFO files contain the formatting information of the VOB files, which tells the DVD player exactly how the DVD should be played (about chapters, subtitles, audio tracks, aspect ratio, languages etc.). BUP files are backups for IFO files, which are needed if the IFO files get corrupted.

Both menus and titles can be split into PGCs (ProGram Chains), and even into cells. To put it very simple the commands (pre commands, post commands and cell commands) tie together the various parts of the DVD. Try and load a DVD in PgcEdit and see the DVD structure in the panel to the left. Among other things it shows you the number of buttons (in both menus and titles) and the playback time of the video in each PGC. To the right it shows you the commands of the selected PGC. Here's an example (http://home.tiscali.be/debie.roland/pgcedit/pgcedit1.jpg) of a DVD may look in PgcEdit

You can also use PgcEdit to find out where the unwanted material is located inside your disc. The easy (but a bit random) way is this: Load the DVD, right click on the PGC you want to check out (judging from the playback time etc.) and choose Preview. Notice the VTS and PGC number, when you encounter the unwanted material. If the unwanted material is located inside a cell among more cells in a PGC, you can doubleclick on a PGC to bring up the Pgc editor window. Hit the ">" icon next to the cell you want to preview.

The advanced method to find the unwanted material is to use PgcEdit's Trace function (see below).

If the unwanted material is located in separate titlesets, titles, PGCs or cells, you can quite easily remove it by using VobBlanker. VobBlanker blanks the material, i.e. totally removes it (you save space on the disc). Here's (http://jsoto.posunplugged.com/guides/VobBlanker/blanking/index.php) a guide.

PgcEdit can also blank out whole title or menu domains inside titlesets. But it can only kill playback of other titles, PGCs and cells, so that the material is "disabled" but not removed from the disc (i.e. there's no space reduction). Here's (http://jean.laroche.free.fr/SkippingStuff0.4.3.1/) a guide on how to kill playback with PgcEdit (also shows you how to use the trace function in PgcEdit to find the unwanted material).

If you don't need to save space, an alternative method would be to jump straight to the main movie by using PgcEdit's macro "Jump to PGC Upon DVD Insert". Here's (http://home.tiscali.be/debie.roland/pgcedit/third_party/blutach/How_to_use_PgcEdit_new_macro.htm) a guide.

If the unwanted material is a part of the main movie PGC and is partly located in one or more cells (like some studio logos at the beginning of the movie, and also often the end credits), you can remove it by using VobBlanker's cut function. Here's (http://jsoto.posunplugged.com/guides/VobBlanker/prevcut/) a guide. You may also use DVDShrink for cutting a part of the movie (in reauthor mode use the start and end pointer settings to leave out the unwanted parts).

For further reading on the subject, :search:

(Blanking/removing/"disabling"/cutting unwanted material has been discussed numerous times in other threads in this section.)

[spyhawk]

Hi Tom, read this guide (http://www.dvd-replica.com/DVD/index.php) so you have a better understanding of DVD structure along with its terminology. Then you'll have a better idea of what PgcEdit and VobBlanker guides are talking about.

Just a quick answer to one of your questions regarding blanking and cutting.

Blanking means replacing a segment of video with a blank, aka black, segment. You won't even see this during normal playback, so it's as if you have removed the unwanted video.

Cutting is just what it means. By cutting, you completely remove either the beginning, the middle, or the end of the video.

[CirTap]

Hi,

@no one in particular: please stop pointing "un-knowing" people to "use the search" or reply with plain "read the guides/sticky": if the asker has no idea of what to search, and doesn't understand all the many concepts involved in "fiddling with a DVD", such generic replies are of no help, and are IMHO better avoided.
Since 90% of all the 650000+ posts here contain each and every possible combination of abbreviations and technical terms regarding all the various concepts of DVD-video, using the forum search is almost always pointless.
In addition, (IMHO) many guides are either outdated, way TOO specific*) to serve as a true "general help" or even worth to be pointed to, and the tools used are often enhanced or abandoned etc. since the guide was written, rendering most information useless -- even if they were helpful in the first place.

I bet today, almost 3 years after 2COOL wrote this very guide, he would probably refer to DGIndex 1.4 rather than DVD2AVI; even IfoEdit has been updated since, and as we learned, there are other tools available today that do the job of this subject better or easier. Things evolve, and gladly 2COOL (often) updates his guides accordingly and keeps writing others: thanks a bunch for that!

@CoNS: I'd like to thank you for taking the time to provide this quick introduction despite Tom dared to ask for "basics" :-)

@Tom: I can feel your pain (and anger) about the tremendous amount of information one's literally forced to swallow in order to grasp the meaning on the many information ppl. provide here trying to help. I felt the same when I came here last year - jeezuz, and I still do in several areas, even though I read for hundreds of hours.
Dealing with DVDs is dealing with a very large and complex science of its own, and I'm glad I'm in the IT business for ~20yrs and learned a lot working with digital audio of all kinds for the same time. I'd be lost without that background knowledge to abstract from.

In addition to CoNS' post head over to the main site and check out
http://www.doom9.org/faqs.htm
http://www.doom9.org/glossary.htm
with the latter one explaining all (most of) those horrifying abbreviations you probably ran into. I can't tell how many other resources I had to read and bookmark in order to understand what all those weired folks here are talking about <gg>

*) As a matter of fact I must agree with Tom once more, that even the most "simple guides" become useless in the eye of its reader 'cos their authors misinterpret "simple" with "little to do/use": even the most simple tasks may still require a lot of basic knowledge, typically left out from most guides, leaving users running in circles.
In addition, they often deal with a very specific problem, valid for only a specific DVD layout/scenario for instance (understandably though).
Since "beginners", with the lack of knowing of ALL the necessary concepts involved, are thereby unable to abstract the author's specific problem to their specific problem, it's a 50:50 chance at best, a guide will work by following a click-thru description.

There are dedicated terms for "manual", "tutorial", and "guide", and it'd be great if people refering to a guide would understand that guides typically don't teach, but only show a very certain procedure, so there's not much learning value by design for a reader w/o the necessary background.

Just my 2.5ct, and thakx for reading - you may now all proceed your your daily businesses :)
I'm off for the movies...

Have fun,
CirTap

[CoNS]

@no one in particular: please stop pointing "un-knowing" people to "use the search" or reply with plain "read the guides/sticky": if the asker has no idea of what to search, and doesn't understand all the many concepts involved in "fiddling with a DVD", such generic replies are of no help, and are IMHO better avoided.
Since 90% of all the 650000+ posts here contain each and every possible combination of abbreviations and technical terms regarding all the various concepts of DVD-video, using the forum search is almost always pointless.Well, since I was the one who suggested to use search, I will answer for no one in particular!

IMO, the search function of this forum can be very useful, indeed, even to newbies, or should I say especially for newbies. If you do an advanced search within this section of the forum for "blank title pgcedit", out of the 59 search results you'll be pointed directly to some very useful threads where many of the answers to the questions asked by TomBrooklyn are right at your feet. And they're sorted by date, so the first posts will all be up-to-date on the subject.

It's just a matter of searching for the right keywords and adjusting the search options to tune in to what you're after. It's the same with a google search - the search database is enormous, but once you learn to feed the search engine with the right keywords and filter the search results, you're surfing the information highway!

What I did was to try to answer TomBrooklyn's question and then draw his attention to the search function for further reading on the subject... :cool:

[CirTap]

CoNS,
I guess we're going off topic, but please let me point out the (IMHO typical) contradictions in your reply regarding using search, which is why I wrote "no one in particular" in the first place: it wasn't ment to offend you, but a general reminder not to shut-down novice' questions with a "use search" sign/link (and you were not the one suggesting search in the first place).
Your second long reply is really excellent and carries a lot of valuable information; it is helpful.

I believe we all -- and "all" implies myself! -- forget too easily about the many, many little things one needs to know and grasp in advance in order to find the kind of results you mentioned. Are you really aware of how much knowledge is burried in your simple and obvious-to-us search phrase? Just re-read Tom's reply to jeanl and his trouble, then reflect.

For the matter of this subject, I really doubt, a novice: knows that this particular forum is the one to search primarily in order to narrow the results, since s/he ...
is likely to be unaware of the relation and internals between VOBs and IFOs, not to speak of the bits and pieces they contain and define (cells, programs, vob/cell-ids, pgc, commands, etc.)
knows that title is one of the magic words; s/he thinks of "the Movie" and "Extras" etc.
is aware of the "technical term" blanking if s/he thinks of to "remove" or "cut" pieces from a DVD-video.
certainly does NOT know that PgcEdit is probably one of the applications that may come handy for this task
The search terms you suggested are far too specific for a novice, and only because you know what to look for, you find these things -- either here or in general by using Google.

The core problem constantly remains: "if the asker has no idea of what to search", urging this person to use a search engine is of any help.
Presuming you're not a Dr. med., how'd you perform to find out about the real cause of a "cough" or "headache" searching a medical database ..?

Have fun,
CirTap

[CoNS]

Yeah, you're right, we're OT'ing big time! :)

One last short comment from me to the search discussion, before I let it go: When I used a search for "blank title pgcedit" as an example, it was because the user had already been pointed to threads/guides about blanking titles with PgcEdit...