No menus after using DVD-RB

[captain_video]

I just started using DVD Rebuilder so forgive my newbiness. This may be more of an authoring or transcoding question than a DVD-RB one so if any mods feel it needs to be moved then please place it in the appropriate forum.

I've ripped some DVD-9 DVDs containing multiple TV episodes and plan on reauthoring the DVDs on single-layer discs. The original DVD contained four episodes plus a few extras. If I only use three episodes without the extras I can get the size down to about 5GB. My plan was to use DVD Rebuilder to shrink the compilation to fit onto a DVD-5 disc.

Unfortunately, my process is quite involved and the end result is that I can't get the menus to work, even after recreating the DVD from scratch with my own menus in DVD-Lab. I don't know if it's because I'm using the compressed VOBs or what but DVD-Lab compiles the project fine until it gets to the menus and then just quits. I've been using DVD-Lab for quite a while now and never had an issue like this before. I believe I had read that DVD-RB could cause menus to not work and that it also has issues with multiple videos on the same DVD which is why I reauthored the disc from scratch.

Is there a way to compress each mpeg file using CCE or similar transcoder to a specified file size without having to go through the DVD-RB process? If I could compress each clip individually and then create the DVD it would save me a lot of time and aggravation. Thanks for any bones you could throw my way.

[jptheripper]

sure.. you need an d2v file and an avs file plus an ecl file for each clip, however.

My recommendation, for an end run around.

Make your menus .. determine the room you need to save (ie. 100mb)

Reauthor just the clips into a movie only title in dvdlab

run the movie only clip through rebuilder

using rb-opt, open the rebuilder.ini and change the target size to 4464 (or whatever) minus the menu size.

Custom tweak any settings for each episode. If you do the episodes with chapters only at the episode boundaries (start/end only) it will be easier.

Run rebuilder generating an undersized dvd.

Re-open dvd lab with your menus and grab the re-encoded cells out of the rebuilt dvd

good luck.

[pg55555]

I believe I had read that DVD-RB could cause menus to not work and that it also has issues with multiple videos on the same DVD which is why I reauthored the disc from scratch.
RB DO NOT HAVE problems with menus, as it just copy them.

The only problem with multiple videos on the same DVD is that RB assume the longest video is the movie and the others are Extras. So, if you select Steal Space from Extras or Half D1 And Half Space for Extras it will apply this selections to the other videos.

Said that, I do not understand what you are doing:
- If you are processing your source with DVDLab to produce a DVD with just 3 episodes and your own menu, for afterwards run through RB to go from the 5 Gb to DVD5 (this is what you said in your post) and DVD-Lab quits before ending, you have not yet run RB, so it is not a RB issue.

[captain_video]

Said that, I do not understand what you are doing:
- If you are processing your source with DVDLab to produce a DVD with just 3 episodes and your own menu, for afterwards run through RB to go from the 5 Gb to DVD5 (this is what you said in your post) and DVD-Lab quits before ending, you have not yet run RB, so it is not a RB issue.
I agree. I think DVD Lab quit when it realized the project was larger than a DVD-5 disc could hold. It did generate the VOBs for the clips and the motion menu but no IFOs. I used the VOBs with DVD-RB to create a set of files that would fit on a single DVD. I used the create IFOs option in IFOEdit to generate a set of IFO and BUP files for the DVD-RB project. I didn't expect to get any working menus when using IFOEdit.

Once the files were resized I recombined the VOBs with IFOEdit into a single large VOB file and then split out each episode separately back into mpegs using VideoReDo. I reintroduced the separate mpeg clips into a new DVD-Lab project and reauthored it from scratch with my menus. For some reason DVD-Lab quit on me again even though the total size of the project was within the DVD-5 limits.

I set up DVD-RB such that it would not try to process one file as the main movie and the rest as extras. That seemed to work as each movie was reduced in size by about the same amount, which is what I was shooting for. I'm stuck at trying to figure out why the compressed clips won't compile properly in a new DVD-Lab project. I've done hundreds of DVD projects with DVD-Lab and this is something I hadn't sen before.

jp - thanks for the tips. I'll give that a try this evening and see how it goes. I think I'll see if I can resize each one of the clips individually using your method with DVD-Lab and DVD-RB and specify the final size to be about 1.5GB. That should give me enough room for my menus and allow me to fit all three clips into the project. I've found it's much easier to work with smaller files than try to deal with files 4GB or larger when I'm editing.

[jdobbs]

I believe I had read that DVD-RB could cause menus to not work and that it also has issues with multiple videos on the same DVD which is why I reauthored the disc from scratch. Don't believe everything you read.

Why not just put the DVD in, DVD Decrypt it, and let DVD-RB do what it does so well? Have you tried it to see how it looks?

[candsh]

I just did a 6 disc back up of Band of Brothers. Each disc contains two episodes with menu's, extras etc. and came out perfect. Before you pre assume shortcommings for RB, I would suggest giving it a try. Think you will be pleasantly surprised with the results. I use CCE Basic (retail $58) and have been 100% error free since I started using it.

[captain_video]

I can't swear that I actually read the part about menus not working. I've been reading sticky threads and FAQs till I'm half blind and my exact recollection is probably not all that accurate at this point.

I have not tried ripping a full DVD-9 disc to DVD-5 as I am a bit reluctant to do so for fear of losing too much picture quality. I recently bought a 60" Hitachi LCD Hi-Def RPTV and a Marantz DV-9500 universal disc player and any loss in picture quality will be readily apparent between the two devices, which is why I'd like to keep the amount of compression to an absolute minimum.

I already have the DVD ripped to my hard drive so perhaps I'll give it a try this evening. I really do prefer to create a DVD without all of the extras included. I don't mind looking at them one time but it's unlikely I'll ever watch them again so I'd just as soon eliminate them completely. I find the menus on a lot of commercial DVDs to be confusing and sometimes difficult to navigate if not downright annoying. It can be a real pain when all you want to do is watch the movie and you have to wade through several menus just to find the Play button.

I was just looking at the DVD-Lab website and saw that they now offer TMPGEnc Source Creator as a standalone mpeg encoder. I thought I'd download the trial version and see if it can do what I need. At $29 it looks like a pretty sweet deal if the picture quality holds up.

[candsh]

I use a Pioneer HD 53" TV played thru a pioneer DV-C36 DVD Player and can see no quality loss. TMPGEnc is a good encoder but not currently supported by RB. CCE Basic is also downloadable and is only $58 on the CCE.com website. You will see some quality loss with extras if you use the "steal pace from extras" options, or you can just remove the extras with VOB Blanker, a free program (with complete instructions in the read me - help - files included)

[jdobbs]

Of course you don't want to use "steal space" when doing series discs, because you will end up stealing from some of the episodes for whichever one is largest.

Remember -- DVD-RB is a full DVD backup program. It has never been represented to be anything else.

[candsh]

And an excellent one too I might add!!!!

[captain_video]

OK, I must admit I'm impressed. I performed a full backup of a DVD-9 disk to DVD-5 using DVD-RB last night and the results were more than acceptable. I was backing up the Babylon 5 DVD set and I did notice a bit of ditortion around the edge of the computer generated graphics but I seem to recall it looked that way with the original DVD as well. I'll see if I can create a DVD from the ripped files with just one or two episodes to do a direct comparison as I no longer have the original DVD. I also tried using VOBBlanker but the resultant disk was unplayable in my Marantz player. I think I figured out what I did wrong so I'll give it another shot this evening and see how it goes. Thanks for the tip on VOBBlanker as it appears to be just what I was looking for.