Which process should I use to exclude unwanted titles?

[MDesigner]

OK, I've been toying with the whole DVD-backup and DVD authoring thing ever since I got my DVD+/-RW drive a few weeks ago.. so I'm still learning, but I'm getting the hang of it now.

What I'd like to be able to do is, pop in a DVD, rip it with DVDDecrypter, leave out the titles I don't want (trailers, and boring special features), and then disable the menu links that lead to those titles.

I have a handle on most of this.. I use DVDShrink and it works great. I know how to use MenuEdit to an extent (on a very basic level) and I know how to disable links. The problem is, DVDShrink no longer allows (did it ever?) you to uncheckmark a title to totally leave it out. So the most I can do is reduce it to still pictures with no audio, and then use MenuEdit on the DVDShrink compressed files to disable the menu items leading to the titles I converted to still pictures.

This is fine.. it works OK, but it's kind of a waste of space. I'd prefer to just totally wipe out the titles I don't want, then MenuEdit out the links. I guess the ideal process would go like this:

1) Rip
2) Cut out unwanted titles
3) DVDShrink to compress
4) MenuEdit out menu items

Not sure if steps 3 & 4 should be transposed or not. Can anyone offer some advice? I'm almost to the point of getting a handle on a process that works well for me.

Thanks!

[MackemX]

you already have the tool to do it as Menuedit has DVD content stripping capabilities :)

http://menuedit.dimad.net/ht_me_delete_vc.html

or you can use my guides below in sig along with 2COOL's DVD stripping guides HERE (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=43142) which are free and mainly use Ifoedit

you can other programs which ain't free but have content removal capabilities, one of which is mine DVDStripper and the other programs are DVDXCopy, InstantCopy and CloneDVD which also include transcoders

I'm sure there are other methods too :)

[MDesigner]

OK..prepare for a dumb question:

Let's say there's a special feature, "Behind the Scenes" and I want to trash it so when I open the DVD files in DVDShrink, it's not there at all. How do I find out what VobID/CellID that title is?

I guess what I should say is.. I have no idea how DVDs are structured.. how to tell which VTS file contains what, how the VobIDs work, CellIDs, etc.

[maa]

Well I got prepared - and it was!
In fact you're asking for someone to write a handbook:D

Thats not neccesary - you are already looking at one.
This forum holds answers to all your questions you just need to search it.

[MDesigner]

I did a bit of guide-reading and such. I'm probably more confused than I was before.

The DVD I'm currently analyzing is The Italian Job. Opening the VIDEO_TS.IFO file in DVDShrink shows that there are 17 titles. Yet the VTS_xx files only go up to VTS_06 (one of the guides said that VTS_XX, XX=title#). I'm trying to find out which titles I want to eliminate. PowerDVD will tell you which title & chapter you're viewing... given that, I should be able to somewhat easily find out which .VOB file a special feature is in.

[Toona]

If I understand correctly then what your trying to do is possible in DVDShrink if you use the re-author mode but you probably want to keep menus don't you in which case this post is useless lol

[MDesigner]

True, DVDShrink won't do that unless you reauthor but then you lose the menus. But you can use MenuEdit and IfoEdit previous to DVDShrink to remove titles and menus that lead to those titles.

[maa]

are 17 titles. Yet the VTS_xx files only go up to VTS_06
Open VIDEO_TS.IFO and look at the list of Titles on this DVD
That should show you that a Title is a different animal to a VTS
Certain VTS are holding more than one title - thats what you don't see in shrink. 2COOL has a guide for replacing a complete TITLE with a blank VOB - its a little advanced but gives you all the info on how to detect where your unwanted bits are stored.