DVDshrink + DVDfab = perfect

[bratloaf]

I have an idea... On movies that are just too darn big to "shrink" properly and keep extras, or on movies that you dont want to completely "slide show" the extras use DVDshrink to "shrink" the main movie title to "just" fit onto a DVD5. Leave the extras alone.

Then use DVDfab on the resulting files to "split" the disk so the main movie+menus completely fits on one disk, and the extras all go on a second...

Thoughts? Im playing with the matrix right now, looks like I can get the main movie down to level 3 (15%) and still have room for it on the 1st disk (using 2.1 beta, different levels remember)

Obviously, there are different choices for different disks, as sometimes the extras deserve to be slide-showed.... But sometimes you want to keep them and not destroy them with high compression.

(Yes, I know this can all be done with Ifoedit, etc, but this is silly easy if it works)

_Jeff

[jir591]

If you are going to end up burning two DVD's, why bother with shrinking the content. Just split the whole thing.

[duartix]

This is a wonderful IDEA.:D
You don't have to bother switching DVD's to watch the movie and only if you want to go through the extras do you need to insert the second DVD.
Of course you could fit everything without recompressing but it wouldn't be near 1% as confortable as what jir591 suggests.

Good Show Old Chap!!!

[bratloaf]

Tried it - at least on the Matrix it's a bust. In fact, I cant get DVDfab to work at all... Just get a "could not find split" error.

I'll have to try on a different DVD.

-Jeff

[duartix]

I'll have to try on a different DVD. Any luck?

[mrbass]

bratloaf was refering to dvdfab beta 2 and I experienced the same problems....beta 3 works great

[JFerguson]

Hey all. I was just thinking about this and did a search and found this thread. Cool.

Has anyone been doing this recently?

Also, if the features were small enough, could the second disc and its DVD structure be burnt to a CD-R, or would this simply not be recognized by a player?

[maa]

I think that depends on whether your player accepts MiniDVD

[guitar_george_skank]

Just wondering, but according to the DVD fab stuff I have read, it puts all of the menus, extras and as much of the movie on disc 1 as it can. Then it will fill up disc 2 with the rest of the movie. it seems to me that no matter what you do with DVDshrink it will not make a difference because of the way DVDFab splits anyway (i presume and hope I'm wrong about this)? Do you need to select a different split point? I'm going to have a go tonight and see what happens but thought I would ask beforehand to test the water.

Cheers,

GGS

[huddy]

I've tried the last few versions of DVDFab and have a couple of questions:

1. Has anyone else had problems with verison 0.17.1 and 0.17.0. For some reason these two versions do not split the main movie correctly - so I have 7gb for disk 1 and 300k for disk 2.

2. A couple of the DVD's I have store the extras after the main movie in the same vob file. This means the menu on disk 1 don't work as the chapters they point to are on the second disk. Is there a way to copy the menus to disk 2 too? (You can split a DVD used IFOEdit, which also allows you to copy the menus to both disks. The problem with that is you don't get the lovely 'Insert Disk 2' picture).

Cheers

[JFerguson]

Originally posted by guitar_george_skank
Just wondering, but according to the DVD fab stuff I have read, it puts all of the menus, extras and as much of the movie on disc 1 as it can. Then it will fill up disc 2 with the rest of the movie. it seems to me that no matter what you do with DVDshrink it will not make a difference because of the way DVDFab splits anyway (i presume and hope I'm wrong about this)? Do you need to select a different split point? I'm going to have a go tonight and see what happens but thought I would ask beforehand to test the water.

Cheers,

GGS

I think GGS is right, here. I tried it; DVDFab did just as he stated. Are there other options?

[mikewillnot]

I think there's another problem with the strategy suggested at the top. Running SHRINK first produces essentially a "movie only" file with no menus. I have had no luck trying to reapply the original menu files to a shrunk movie -- for scene selection, anyway, which is the menu I'm usually most interested in. I can't see how incorporating the shrunk movie files into the original file structure and running dvdfab on it could possibly produce working menus -- at least as far as scene selection menus goes.

[maa]

Originally posted by mikewillnot
Running SHRINK first produces essentially a "movie only" file with no menus. Thats only in re-author mode though.

[Amerzone]

Originally posted by guitar_george_skank
Just wondering, but according to the DVD fab stuff I have read, it puts all of the menus, extras and as much of the movie on disc 1 as it can. Then it will fill up disc 2 with the rest of the movie. it seems to me that no matter what you do with DVDshrink it will not make a difference because of the way DVDFab splits anyway (i presume and hope I'm wrong about this)? Do you need to select a different split point? I'm going to have a go tonight and see what happens but thought I would ask beforehand to test the water.

Cheers,

GGS

You are 100% right, it is confirmed even by Doom9's guide at http://www.doom9.org/mpg/dvdfab-fullsplit.htm

DVDFab will first analyze the entire DVD before showing this screen - this might take a few minutes.

Once you're here, DVDFab will already have chosen a suitable split point for you. At the time I'm writing this, it doesn't make much sense to change the PGC, because if you do, most likely the DVD couldn't be split properly anymore. This is due to the following: DVDFab tries to put all extras from a movie, and the menus on disc1. Then it fills up disc one with as much from the main movie as possible, and puts the rest of the main movie on disc2. On disc2, the movie will start playing directly and there's no menu. If you prefer to have another configuration you'll have to wait until there's a version of DVDFab where you can manually select a split point.

End of thread :confused:

[JFerguson]

Yes, the arbitrary split point pretty much kills it.

You're better off using IFOEdit to rip the content and burn everything separate at this point...

[Gil T Pleasure]

DVDFab v1.0 is suppose to be out September 1st (http://www.dvdrhelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=173552). Let's hope the problem has been fixes.