Title removal, IC and Nero 6.0, problems in backup

[duartix]

I've backed up Blackadder Series I with IC.
I used the DVD magic setting to remove some of the titles.
When I was about to burn the backup, Nero 6.0 propmted me with the message:
"(...) unable to reallocate video (...) The resulting video may be unplayable (...)"
Nero 5.5 used to warn me about something like this but the playback in the PC always worked. Is it something with version 6?

Now the disc I burned is unplayable.
PowerDVD will say:
"The DVD disc might have been damaged so as to inhibit playback operation."
WMP wont play it until I select another chapter and force it to play there. At first I though "probably bad media!" but when I tryed DVDDecryptor to extract the files to disk and besides extracting OK, it will play fine from disk! :confused: Also burning that on a DVD-RW won't work!

Is there a way to fix these without making another backup? (it took me 2 passes in IC and I have 3 backups in these conditions)

ImgTool complains about missing VTS_01_1.VOB. Does it have anything to do with it?
Here is a filelist for the one I'm talking about:


VIDEO_TS.BUP 26-06-2003 11:47 18.432
VIDEO_TS.IFO 26-06-2003 11:47 18.432
VTS_01_0.BUP 02-07-2003 18:16 51.200
VTS_01_0.IFO 02-07-2003 18:16 51.200
VTS_01_0.VOB 26-06-2003 11:11 81.795.072
VTS_02_0.BUP 26-06-2003 11:46 40.960
VTS_02_0.IFO 26-06-2003 11:46 40.960
VTS_02_0.VOB 26-06-2003 11:11 178.176
VTS_02_1.VOB 26-06-2003 11:13 735.539.200
VTS_03_0.BUP 26-06-2003 11:46 40.960
VTS_03_0.IFO 26-06-2003 11:46 40.960
VTS_03_0.VOB 26-06-2003 11:13 178.176
VTS_03_1.VOB 26-06-2003 11:15 757.774.336
VTS_04_0.BUP 26-06-2003 11:46 38.912
VTS_04_0.IFO 26-06-2003 11:46 38.912
VTS_04_0.VOB 26-06-2003 11:15 178.176
VTS_04_1.VOB 26-06-2003 11:18 794.089.472
VTS_05_0.BUP 26-06-2003 11:46 40.960
VTS_05_0.IFO 26-06-2003 11:46 40.960
VTS_05_0.VOB 26-06-2003 11:18 178.176
VTS_05_1.VOB 26-06-2003 11:20 771.551.232
VTS_06_0.BUP 26-06-2003 11:46 38.912
VTS_06_0.IFO 26-06-2003 11:46 38.912
VTS_06_0.VOB 26-06-2003 11:20 178.176
VTS_06_1.VOB 26-06-2003 11:23 703.647.744
VTS_07_0.BUP 26-06-2003 11:47 38.912
VTS_07_0.IFO 26-06-2003 11:46 38.912
VTS_07_0.VOB 26-06-2003 11:23 178.176
VTS_07_1.VOB 26-06-2003 11:25 843.526.144
29 ficheiro(s) 4.689.610.752 bytes

I'm on the edge of using another tool to remove titles because I can't understand spit of what's going on in IFOEdit even after reading a few guides. Can anyone point me to a tool that safely removes titles/titlesets and lets me choose the output size in order to use IC afterwards?
Thanks.

[Arianos]

Can anyone point me to a tool that safely removes titles/titlesets and lets me choose the output size in order to use IC afterwards?
You can use MackemX's guides, which work 100%. They require some studying, but they are free. Or alternatively you can use Menuedit
http://menuedit.dimad.net/home.html, registered version.
Read EVERYTHING at the site.
When I was about to burn the backup, Nero 6.0 propmted me with the message:
"(...) unable to reallocate video (...) The resulting video may be unplayable (...)"
Nero 5.5 used to warn me about something like this but the playback in the PC always worked. Is it something with version 6?
Nero always complains if there is something wrong, especially a missing VOB. You have been lucky so far.
Is there a way to fix these without making another backup? (it took me 2 passes in IC and I have 3 backups in these conditions)
IC7, as has been stated numerous times, SHOULD NOT be used for title removal.
But you backups might be 'fixable'. You will have to re-rip the missing VOBs and 'slim' them using menuedit, or vobedit.

[duartix]

Thanks Arianos :) I guess I will try MenuEdit. It can't be less clear than IFOEdit. I'll give IFOEdit one last try after I look through MackemX's guides.

Anyway do you want to have a shot at why the files play fine on the hard drive, but not reading the very same files from DVD?

[Arianos]

Software players (e.g. Power DVD) are quite forgiving when it comes to correct DVD structure. Standalones on the other hand, can be real fussy (Philips, Sony) or medium forgiving (Cyberhome, Apex and many cheap Chinese brands).
I choose to make my stripped DVDs totally compatible to DVD standards, as I don't know what my next DVD brand will be. :)
As I am an Ifoedit ignorant, I open either DVDshrink, CloneDVD or Nero Recode for a testing of the structure. If they say it's OK, I'm in the clear.

By the looks of your filelist, VIDEO_TS.VOB and VTS_01_1.VOB are missing (duh!) one of which usually contains the main menu.
Good Luck! :)

[duartix]

The funny thing I was talking about has nothing to do with standalones players.
I was talking about PC playback. Fine from HD, doesn't work from DVD-ROM. Both with PowerDVD,.

Well, lets hope title removal is properly adressed by someone other than DVD95Copy. (I don't believe in buying it just for this well implemented feature) :(

[Yannis]

You may use IFOEdit just to check the validity of the dvd structure.

IFOEdit is really good (at least!) at that. You don't have to know how it works really... Just load the main ifo end press play. If it gives you an error about navigation or something else, then you will be sure your changes are dodgy...

[duartix]

Well, I'm getting the point:
You can run from IFOEdit but you can't hide!
Yesterday I finally cleared some details about IFOEdit and finally understood it's filosophy.

Detail 1: IFOEdit creates new .IFO & .VOB files. After that, those files are meant to be copied over the original ones. But...

Detail 2: If you strip an entire VTS it won't create a .VOB file. You must leave at least the last Vob_id (usualy a very short one (< 2 seconds)).

Detail 3: IC doesn't like this. ("List index out of bounds") It knows there are missing chapters so you have to use a notebook and some more IFOEditing.

GRRRRR :angry:!
One click! The hell it is one click :angry:!

Those latest backups left me wondering a lot of other stuff.

One surprise came from WMP. It plays some of those "structure damaged"
DVD's that PowerDVD 4 won't play!:confused:
Still PowerDVD plays some of them correctly if I DVDDecrypt them to disk.

I'm not sure yet but I'm pointing all my guns at Nero 6.0
Yesterday in a all or nothing atempt, I downloaded RecordNow Max 4.00 only to find out that it won't recognize my ASUS 0402P as a recorder.
Things are going great! :D

I'm really having fun. :p In fact I'm having so much fun, I'll be holding off all my ripping for at least 3 weeks. :D :D :D
Perhaps when I get back from my vacations I'll find out that any of these things have been published:

InstantCopy Update 7.1.2 - Deletes Vob_ID/Title Sets maintaining a valid DVD structure.

IFOEdit 0.96 - Automaticaly updates chapter data when deleting Vob_IDs.

RecordMax 4.50 - Identifies my DVD-RW drive correctly. (Haven't tried)

Nero 6.5 - Accepts IC results and burns valid DVDs.

DVDShrink 2.4 - Removes titles.

DVD95Copy 1.6 - Free.

PowerDVD 5 - Plays IC DVDs.

Now is that too much to ask?

[duartix]

Well you just can't leave it alone can you???
Yesterday I was browsing through my earlier backups just to find out that most of it don't exibit these problems. :D So, it must have started between a week and 2 weeks ago.
What happened then?
I tell you what happened then: Nero 6.0.
That's it I going back to 5.5.(...):p

[kryne]

i have the same problem after using ifoedit it has the video_ts.vob file but after IC7 gets its hands on it the files gone and i dont remove any of the titles, anyone know what might cause this?

[Ewoud]

I know have some serious DVD- structure trouble also...

Before everything burned okay, but i guess so far i have only used Instant Copy to burn a mainmovie or Full DVD's using shrink, because what now happens, when I produced my image with IC and MenuEdit is that both NERO and Stomp REcordNow Max give me warnings about the structure and wont burn!

Stomp just gives a general error and Nero says something like:

1) missing vob file (i correct by placing this back in dir from original DVD, i contained some warning logos. I dont know why IC stripped this vob.

2) After correcting still have a warning about "re-asingning DVD-Videofiles started; re-asingning DVD-Videofiles failed!!"

When recompiling the DVD, I first used MackemX' guide to edit the entry point sector in IFOedit to remove some title sets and for one DVD this worked but with this one IC hangs while transcoding.... so thats why I choose to remove the specific titlesets in IC.

I am not sure now where the problem is because also when i first edited the menus with MenuEdit, IC dropped the menus when I was oversizing and when not IC crashed when transcoding and says: invalid DVD-source!

CAn someone maybe tell me how I can repair this final structire that Nero complains about,.. PowerDVD plays it fine!

What action shall i know take in the future if i want to (save) trancode by IC (best quality for full backup)...

I tested the final files in IFOedit and it says something about 1 of 3 Videofiles failed to render properly - substream.

and: The videodecoder doesnt produce closed caption video data....??

EDIT: I now notice that the same message is played when loading the original DVD in IFOedit, so this doesnt say anything about my produced structure.

I can't stant it... The result was so perfect in PowerDVD and the menuediting cost me alot of work and I transcoded the whole thing about frustrating 5 times in IC, but now the result is okay, but wont burn.

How can I savely remove titles and cells so that the structure stays stable to load in instant copy and also, how can i savely edit the Menu with MenuEdit without IC complaining and crashing while transcoding. ... I now oversize the transcode and edit the menus later.. The edited menu load fine however in DVDshrink.

please help me out of this puzzle, i want to make high quality backups of full DVD including menu but be able to remove a title and edit the menus to take out animations of other languages to save space before transcode.

So, since IFOedit says something about - substream when testing the structure maybe I should first use DVDshrink at al to remove unwanted audio and substreams, as this application does this maybe saver then IC.

I hope you people can give me some advise on how to remove savely things out of the structure and still have manula control over th content and produce high quality transcodes.

thanks,

Ewoud

[Arianos]

@ Ewoud:
Menuedit never failed me to safely remove titles and IC7 accepting the project afterwards. MackemX's guides, along with 2COOL's, if followed to the letter (if you dare :) ), also give compliant results. IC7 getting rid of a VIDEO_TS.VOB out of it's own whim, is common, but you already found the solution.:)
Ifoedit not playing DVDs is also common, but no 100% solution is found yet, so that would not worry me. Annoy me, yes. Out of 3 almost identical system I have, Ifoedit playbacks in only one!!! :)
IMHO, you must have done something wrong in Ifoupdating manually. In order to get rid of the manual 'input error factor', you have to use DVDStripper, but unfortunately, there is no demo available.

[Ewoud]

Thanks for reading and the reply :)

I did the whole thing over to debug... I noticed I made one mistake but that didn't solve the problem as I end up with the same problem; IC is dropping the menu when it actually finished transcoding!

The mistake I noticed was that when I finished editing the menu with MenuEdit, I copied not only the VOB file, but also the correspondating IFO to a backup directory to later insert/paste it...but later I paste the VOB file AND IFO file to my directory and I had to paste only the VOB to the directory otherwise I overwrite my previous corrected MAIN IFO while doing the vobremovals by MaxkemX'guides. But apperantly this wasnt THE sollution when I did this okay in the next try when doing all over.

Listen, I shall tell you exactly! what i did in my latest try:

1) I ripped the DVD to HDD with DVDshrink.

2) In Shrink I removed all the unwanted sub and audiostreams.

3) In IFOedit I preview the content what I want to remove, make notes of the correspondating VobID's, stripped them, copied the the stripped files including modified mainIFO to my Shrinkdirectory.

4) I test the whole thing by loading into DVDshrink; no problem!

5) Then I copy and paste the stripped MENU VOB (done by MenuEdit) from a directory where I kepped it, to my Shrink directory (only the stripped VOB)

6) I perform the IFO update in the shrinkdirectory by doing the MENU EXTRAS function in IFOedit, check all ID's and "strip" them. Actually correct them. I get two messages saying correct adjusting pointers and updated VOBinformation. I copy the modified files from the EDIT directory to the mainshrinkdirectory overwriting again all files.

7) I do the GET VTS sectors function by IFOedit.

6) Load and test the whole thing into DVDshrink; no problem.

8) loading into InstantCopy,...little slow, but loads.

9) After transcoding the VOB containing the menus is now only 126 kb, instead of 171 MB. I stripped the menu from 514 to 171 by deleting all animations in foreign languages.

10) I am puzzled .......:)


What can I do?

[Ewoud]

I did a second test again...

The last directory I made as described we know did play correct in PowerDVD and I can loaded into DVDshrink, so I know shrinked/transcoded the files including the modified menu with shrink and the results burned and played fine without errors. Though there IS something not okay with the menu as IC8 will not copy the menu while transcoding and either drops it or crahes saying; invalid DVD source!

I want to transcode by IC8 cause of the best quality, the transcoed by shrink look like a set of JPEG's.... (sorry, Mr. Shrink, the application is really the greatest of all; korrekt size display, korrekt output, detailed display of titles, easy use, no hangs, but only the internal transcoder could be some what better... maybe someone can write a plugin add to use external transcoding with shrink) .... So I need to compress by IC8 but it won't handle the modified menu's so I must be doing something wrong with MenuEdit that is not save to 100% compatibillity.

Instant Copy 8 also sees the menu as being ovewr 350 MB while it is actually original 514 but I edited and removed content wich made it 171 MB. I did the the menu of the DVD "Beauty and the beast" by Walt Disney pictures.

What did I do wrong in MenuEdit? I hided some buttons and set them to NOP. ...I removed some ID's completely, wich had only cells in it with content i want to remove. Maybe I should had keep at lest one cell for each ID?

Arianos, what can be the problem why IC has problem with the menu? Am I doing something wrong?

[Ewoud]

Arianos, I was reading the info on your site again about stripping content with menuEdit and updating with IFOedit to be sure I made no mistakes but, when I read again I notice that you write on the last action the following:

10. Copy .ifo and .bup files created by IfoEdit back to your VIDEO_TS directory

Since IFOedit also correct the VOB navigation packs I assume that you also have to copy the modified VOB back into your VIDEO_TS directory! Or am I wrong? What I was doing was copy ALL the files back to the VIDEO_TS including the VOB again, is this not correct??

[Dimad]

Originally posted by Ewoud
...I removed some ID's completely, wich had only cells in it with content i want to remove.

That is probably the problem. I don't know how IC reads disk in, but it is quite possible that it analyses comands and you may just have links to what you have completely deleted.

...Maybe I should had keep at lest one cell for each ID?... This will not save you either. You'd rather keep whole stucture as it was - just replace thing you don't need with empty cell to save some space.

[Ewoud]

Yes that what I thought, replacing would be better...but I havent been so long experimantating with the DVD structures, so I didn't know what was the best action as I can't also not know what is actually behind the action of MenuEdit, i mean you know what it does as you probably wrote the code. Also, what is doing IFOedit specificly when you uddate afterwards...I can only keep myself to perform these actions as told in the guides but what it does...I cannot (yet) edit this action myself manually.

Also, I read on the MenuEdit site about copying the the IFO and BUP modified by IFOedit back to the VIDEO_TS dir, but must one not also copy the modified VOB?? On the site is written only the IFO an BUP...

Maybe I made a mistake there also while I copied also the VOB from the updated files by IFOedit.

Another important question I have about MenuEdit is:

-Can you korrekt and update the IFO's twice with IFOedit when you for example thought you were finished with removing and editing the menu and updated the IFO's but later again edit the content of the same VOB and again you must correkt by IFOedit.... I mean, I did this action once and by the 2nd correcting by IFOedit It wouldn't work or the action resulted in a VOB of a few kb's (126 kb) it was 171 MB before! The size of 126 kb was exactly the same size of the VOB I got when IC8 dropped my menu after transcoding, where once was the complete menu the dir had still the VOB but it was only 126 kb.

-How can you actually be sure that a specific CellID is not used anymore? Do you check this only just by looking at the menu playing on your software player, or do you have to check these references in IFOedit and can it be that, if u for example removed all French content of a menu and also disabled all buttons to diplay/ choose the French part, the DVD later still needs these menuID's outside the menu? I mean, sometimes is the the VOB containing the menu files a part of a VOBset wich also contains the files for the mainmovie so they are all connected to the same IFO....

By the way, the reason i removed the whole ID's wsa that is not really a one click option to replace content as you everytime have to:
click the openbutton, navigate to the speficic VOB, open it, navigate to the CellID you want, select it, and choos e to replace and confirm......i mean come on! can this not be automated...as it is everytime the same VOB and same Cell why not copy it into memory and on the application make a button saying: replace with cell in memory or last open cell. Right now i am (trying) to record a macro for this a this very moment, serious ;)

Maybe you could also implent a function to import a altered cellgrpahic again when you export it and edit it. Not really important but though a nice feature for a application like this, really fit to it. :)

Well, thanks for the support and may it's funtionality grow to edit edit the menus. :)

[Arianos]

@Ewoud:
(It's not my site it's Dimad's :))
I think Dimad nailed the problem in the above post. I always replace cells, not delete.


The problem might also be (taken fron menuedit's guide):
5. Uncheck "AutoCopy Menu-files to destination.";
When doing Vob Extras, Ifoedit insists to check this box automatically, after every action you take in that window, e.g. browse for a destination folder, and one may ovelook it's keep getting checked by itself, even after one unchecks it.

[Ewoud]

You mean that even if you have the option UNCCKED and a directory filled in the browse box to a previous used path, the IFOedit application is still overwriting, except for if you browse again???
my goodness!!

I did Always UNCHECK "same destination" option, but i didn't know
that was enough!

Also, i still havent got a answer to my important question if I have to copy ALSO the VOB along with the modified IFO (and BUP) to my VIDEO_TS after doing IFOedits correcting....

Should the modified VOB also be copied back? On the site it says ONLY the IFO and BUP.

thanks all for support and helping solve my puzzle, great! :)

[Dimad]

Originally posted by Ewoud
Also, I read on the MenuEdit site about copying the the IFO and BUP modified by IFOedit back to the VIDEO_TS dir, but must one not also copy the modified VOB?? On the site is written only the IFO an BUP...

MenuEdit does correct navigation info in the vob file it is working with. So when you replace/delete cells in menu vob everything is fine (it is just one file) when you modify movie vob and there are some more vob file(s) in this title set after modifyed - they will not get corrected. Then it is necessary to copy VOB files created by IfoEdit as well.


-Can you korrekt and update the IFO's twice with IFOedit when you for example thought you were finished with removing and editing the menu and updated the IFO's but later again edit the content of the same VOB and again you must correkt by IFOedit....

I guess it is question to Derrow, but I don't see anyproblems with doing it twice.


-How can you actually be sure that a specific CellID is not used anymore?

...you have to check these references in IFOedit and IT CAN be that, if u for example removed all French content of a menu and also disabled all buttons to diplay/ choose the French part, the DVD later still needs these menuID's outside the menu.

All depends on how DVD is authored. The only way to make sure it is not used anywhere is to look through all program chains/commands.


By the way, the reason i removed the whole ID's wsa that is not really a one click option to replace content as you everytime have to:
click the openbutton, navigate to the speficic VOB, open it, navigate to the CellID you want, select it, and choos e to replace and confirm......i mean come on! can this not be automated...as it is everytime the same VOB and same Cell why not copy it into memory and on the application make a button saying: replace with cell in memory or last open cell. Right now i am (trying) to record a macro for this a this very moment, serious ;)


Guys, come on! There is a reason why I make new releases - to make program better. This been implemented quite a while ago. Just download latest version. Even making a macro is not a fresh idea... ;)


Maybe you could also implent a function to import a altered cellgrpahic again when you export it and edit it. Not really important but though a nice feature for a application like this, really fit to it. :)

Author new cellgraphics into vob and use "replace cell". Actually take a look into MenuEdit Q&A (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?threadid=57186) it will make your life easier :)


Well, thanks for the support and may it's funtionality grow to edit edit the menus. :)
It is getting there, you can add new buttons to menu now.