Help preserving pgcs/ titles

[calyx]

Ok, I give up, I've been trying to avoid posting a plea for help, but I'm finally at that point. I'm trying to keep my actual time spent in ripping dvds to a minimum, so I've been ripping the movie only using ifoedit, no menus or extras, and avoided reauthoring anything. Which I would like to continue. But recently, with the Sopranos, I've ran into a hitch.

I would like to burn just 2 episodes to each dvd+r, essentially breaking on dvd9 down into 2 dvd5's. I've succeeded in just pulling the first 2 episodes out (vobids 1, 2 & 5), and encoded them in ifoedit, but the new ifo file has the 2 episodes (originally 2 pcg's) combined into 1 pgc, and only 1 title. They originally had 14 chapters per pgc, now it's combined into 1 pgc with 28 chapters.

All I want to do is preserve those first 2 pgc's, and just have 2 per disc, no extras or menus. I just want to be able to flip to the next episode rather than clicking up to chapter 9, just click next title.

I noticed vobid 5 is originally played after each episode (ie, vobid1, vobid5, vobid2, vobid5...), so I'm assuming that helps to break up the episodes/titles. With the new ifo file though, it only refers to vobid 1, 2, & 3, not vobid 1, 2, & 5. I know this is because ifoedit is creating new vob files in sequential order, so I think this may be the problem. Or does ifoedit correct this already, and I'm screwing something else up?

Anyways, any feedback or advice would be appreciated.
Sorry about the super long post :D

calyx

[calyx]

So if no one can tell me how, can someone at least tell me if this is possible? I've searched through the forums, read through the guides (well, the ones that looked like they pertained at least), etc, but I'm still confused as to whether or not I can do this...

calyx

[2COOL]

I haven't done the Sopranos yet but in your request, it may be possible. What I would do is keep the epidsodes titleset you want and edit your menu to disable any unwanted buttons. You can do a direct/indirect jump to your episode selection menu in your First Play PGC. Just a thought.

[geffroman]

I have done all the Sopranos... 2 episodes per disc and I keep all menus... Works very nicely... I actually use 2 sided discs and have a DVD player that flips discs so it's almost like having an original disc...

They play some games with IDs to make it confusing... Not every disc gets the same treatment by me to make it work...

Which Season and Discs are you trying to work...? I am sure I can help...

Jeff

[calyx]

Hrmm, I think I understand what you're saying, but that's something I'm trying to avoid. I completely removed the menu, I want nothing but the episodes if I can help it. Even if I were to do this, I would have to remove vob ids 3 & 4, so that it could fit on one dvd5. So the original ifo file has the titleset attributes, then 4 pgcs, and then the menu language crap and so on. Once I strip those two ids, it still combines the first 2 pgc's into one. Each one of those has 8 chapters/cells. Now there is only 1 pgc with 16 chapters/cells. And vob id 5 is still getting bumped down to id 3.


I think most of this is going to be in vain. For some reason, I think I must have been imaging a title advance button on my dvd player remote. That combined with scanning some old semi-old posts and seeing a reference to not being able to switch titlesets in the middle of a movie, unless your dvd player has a built-in one or something. So without at least a rudimentary menu of sorts, I wouldn't be able to advance to the next one... right?

calyx

[2COOL]

You can still do the way you do want to but if you want to advance to your second episode immediately, you would have to configure it as your second chapter. By doing it this way, your first episode will not have any chapters though. In your second, you can opt to keep it or none at all. I was assuming you wanted too keep all your episode chapters intact. But to do that, you need to keep your menu.

[calyx]

Thx 2COOL, everything makes perfect sense now. I hadn't even considered the 1,2 chapter option, but I think I'll probably just keep the menus. So far, with the movies I've backed up, I've kept the process simple by just ripping the movie itself to save space, but with the Sopranos 2 episodes are a little bit shy of a full dvd5. Which means I should have no proplem keeping the menus...

calyx

[geffroman]

Sopranos episodes are sometimes placed on the disc OUT of ID order... so even if you did eliminate all to end up with two consecutive episodes running back to back you could find yourself watching episodes out of order...

I am sure they do this to mess up hackers... Some discs are:

1
2
3
4

But some are:

1
3
2
4 and so on...

[Dave82]

If you want to preserve PGCs and titles (or even edit them as you want) without a menu follow this guide (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=58282) ;)

[mrfurious]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I'm trying to do the same thing with the new Season 4 Sopranos.

I had trouble following the guide above.

I've backed up DVDs plenty of times, but always movies, never anything episodic.

I was figuring, as calyx, that I would put 2 episodes on a disc. Since each disc usually has 3 episodes, this means I have to take episode 3 from disc 1 and episode 4 from disc 2 and combine them onto a disc. I don't care for menus or extras or anything, but would prefer keeping chapter information.

What is the best approach to do this? Do I need to do all the sophisticated IFO hacking referenced in the guide above? Or is there a simpler approach?

Thanks

[geffroman]

I just finished Season 4... I used Instantcopy on disc 1, 3 & 4 as they only have 3 episodes. Disc 2 which has 4 episodes I split on two sides of a flipper.

In the past when splitting 3 episode discs I just use IFOEdit to split the second episode right down the middle.

So I get episode 1 and first half of episode two on one side of flipper and second half of episode 2 and all of episode 3 on second side of flipper. I keep all menus and just tell second side of disc to start on Title 2 so it picks up right when I left off on episode two.

[Dave82]

Try DVD Shrink (http://www.doom9.org/Soft21/Vobtools/dvdshrink23.zip): you can choose the episodes you want with a simple drag & drop, then follow this guide (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=61238) by 2COOL to be able to skip the titles with the title button on your remote control (otherwise any navigation is impossible).
If you want to have a menu to select the episode you want to watch, I suggest you DVD-Lab (http://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/): it gives you great results with a little effort, but it's a try & buy release.
At the moment it only allows to create a multi-PGC titleset, so your episodes need to have the same audio/video features (I suppose you have no problems for that).
Download also version 1.3 beta 6 in the History section to be able to import more than 1 VOB for each episode.
Have fun :D

[calyx]

Wow, it has been a long time. I forgot I even posted this, this was back in my early days.

I've finally moved on in my backup methods, I'm currently using DVD Rebuilder and completey reencoding movies using CCE. I do appreciate the suggestions though, Dave82 was kind enough to pm and clue me in on a different approach.

Most times I do strip out menus, extras, and unwanted audio in order to create more free space for the video, but on episodic DVDs such as Sopranos, Family Guy, and so on, I've come to the conclusion that menus are worth keeping so you can easily tell what episode is what :)

I haven't actually done Sopranos yet, I gave up on it at the time until I could find a better solution, but I'll defintely be giving it another shot with DVD-RB and see how it goes.

EDIT: Wow, I just realized I logged in with my original account on the forum, and replied to a PM and a thread that are over a year old. The PM did mention resurrecting an old thread though :). Somehow I couldn't get in with this account before and opened a new one, and last night I inadvertently logged in with an account that probably hasn't been used in quite some time.

So anyone who has bothered to check the thread because its got new material, move on, it's just me being an idiot. I need to look at the dates on PMs from now on.