Removing Menu's from VIDEO_TS.IFO with PGCEdit?

[hummus19]

My goal was to be able to remove extras and the warnings and all that jazz from my dvds so that there would be little to no reason to have to use something like shrink or reencode (except maybe for taking out extra languages too) Anyway, the easiest way i found was with Pgcedit and just blanking the video associate with the ifo's that i wasnt going to use. This work well until i came across Finding Neverland, where the Parental warnings and FBI screens and such were actually in the VIDEO_TS.VOB file. As far as i can tell, its either all or nothing with PcgEdit. If i blank all the menues in that associated ifo the dvd becomes un-bootable. I know its small, just wonding how i go about this.

[jeanl]

You can do (at least) 2 things:
- You can blank VIDEO_TS.VOB (I often do that), it probably does not have any "useful" menu so you won't destroy anything by doing that.
- You can use MenuShrink (see my signature) to shrink VIDEO_TS.VOB only. All the parental warnings and FBI stuff will be squashed down but any "functional" menu will be kept functional (but made extremely tiny!).

jeanl

[hummus19]

Im at work so bear with me, im trying to remember this stuff off the top of my head...

But the movie has something like about 650 megs of black video (i think like 23 minutes worth) in the Video_ts.vob.

Ive only used thie PGcedit program for three movies and am not very knowledgeable about dvd structure; that being said i thought that the VMG(M) part on the left had to do with the VIdeo_ts stuff and the VTS(M/T) went with the corisponding VTS ifo/vob. If thats the case, when i left click on the appropriate menu on the VMGM top section it either kills all or nothing. The FBI warnings and parental warnings are there too.

Basically i dont know how to kill individual menus/titles without buttons...

How do i blank the Video_Ts Vob with this program...i can blank any other vob but isnt this one associated with the VMG menu?

[jeanl]

MenuShrink will get rid of the black video. MenuShrink kills everything that does not have buttons in the menu domain, and turns the rest into "still menus" (no animation). If you want to keep the menus exactly as they are (I mean, the real menus!) then only check VIDEO_TS.VOB in the advanced options in MenuShrink. It's extremely easy to use, you'll see.
In general, it's true that it can be unsafe to blank menus, but only menus that are part of the normal playback. For example, killing a parental warning menu isn't going to hurt you, unless of course navigation takes you there, in which case it could create problems.
jeanl

[hummus19]

Do you HAVE to have a still screen with menushrink? I mean, i want to totally remove the warnings and black video

[jeanl]

No. Anything that does not have buttons is treated as garbage, shrunk to the maximum and bypassed entirely if possible (i.e., its playback is skipped if it's possible, but it's not always possible, in which case, depending on the player, you might see a flash of it - but not on any player I've tested).
jeanl

[hummus19]

Ok, what about this: The actual menu (play/extras/language....) is in the vts_01.ifo. If i load the Video_Ts.ifo into menushrink will it leave the other one alone? I want to keep the movie's menu system just get rid of the junk.

[r0lZ]

You may also use the Kill Playback function of PgcEdit. Locate your unwanted titles with the preview. Remember to leave the menus with buttons, or you will have navigation errors.
Then, call the Kill Playback function. In the menu domains, this function will ask if you want to convert the menu to dummy. Answer yes.

Also, if you have several language units (LUs) in the menu domains, use the new Remove LU function, and leave only the LU in your language.

When you have killed all the PGCs you don't want to keep, and removed the LUs, process the DVD with VobBlanker. Just accept the defaults, don't specify any cell to balnk. It will drop the unreferenced cells you have blanked in PgcEdit.

If your unwanted cells are not in the menu domains (VMGM and VTSM), then you're unlucky. You will have to blank them with VobBlanker directly.

[jeanl]

Ok, what about this: The actual menu (play/extras/language....) is in the vts_01.ifo. If i load the Video_Ts.ifo into menushrink will it leave the other one alone? I want to keep the movie's menu system just get rid of the junk.
The default behavior would also shrink the main menu, but if you go in the advanced options and only select VIDEO_TS, then the rest will be left as is.
jeanl

[hummus19]

Wow, thank you all so much. I finally got a 52 inch tv realized that the quality difference between 53% origional movie and 85-90% was enormous. All my backups before now look aweful, when they seemed fine on my old 32 inch.

That vobblanker, with some experimenting last night, is great. I love how you can cut the opening/ending scenes. And menushrink did some things that at first glance i didnt think it could do. With those two programs and PGCEdit i think im all set to do about as much as i needed with any dvd. Thanks again for all the help.

I still wonder about Ifoedit. It seems like this is the program of choice for many of the posts here, but i have yet to find a guide that walks you through all the steps and unlike the prementioned programs, i cant seem to stumble through Ifoedit and make any sense of what im seeing. i know there are doom9 guides but they only one that worked for what i was trying to do was the spliting to two dvd5's.

[jeanl]

IFOEdit is getting old, and does not seem to be supported any more. PgcEdit can do *almost* everything that IFOEdit does (not quite though) and it's much more user-friendly. People use IFOEdit most likely because they don't know you can use PgcEdit instead!!! Except for the few things that you can only do in IfoEdit, but that list is getting smaller by the day!
jeanl

[Mr.Zebra]

Except for the few things that you can only do in IfoEdit, but that list is getting smaller by the day!
jeanl

Just wondering, though not exactly on topic for this thread...

What is it that pgcedit won't do, and only ifoedit will do? are they major things?

[lark]

i don't think that you can remove whole VTS with pgcedit (at least i haven't found a way to do that).

i guess the same goes for renumbering the titles...

regards
t :)

[jeanl]

can't do a mock strip in PgcEdit. A VTS Sectors yes, but not a mock strip (i.e. readjusting pointers in the vob file and resynchronizing the IFO with the vob). Despite the fact that IFOEdit's mock strip is somewhat flawed (cell commands/flags) it's still extremely useful.

[lark]

which reminds me about removing the angles ;-)

regards
t :)

[lark]

or authoring a dvd (well, why do it in ifoedit, when muxman is available)...
t :)

[r0lZ]

IfoEdit is a monitor: it shows all values in all tables, with the position in the table in hexadecimal. It's a verry good tool to learn how the infos are laid out in the IFOs. But, it's a very low-level tool (in the programmer's meaning of this term). You must know exactly what you are doing when you change a value.

In the other hand, PgcEdit displays only the most useful informations, and has macros to do some useful tasks easily. It focuses on the edition of the navigation commands and PGC parameters.

[blutach]

can't do a mock strip in PgcEdit. A VTS Sectors yes, but not a mock strip (i.e. readjusting pointers in the vob file and resynchronizing the IFO with the vob). Despite the fact that IFOEdit's mock strip is somewhat flawed (cell commands/flags) it's still extremely useful.I have found the better mock strip now is VobBlanker - no question in my mind.

Regards

[blutach]

i don't think that you can remove whole VTS with pgcedit (at least i haven't found a way to do that).

i guess the same goes for renumbering the titles...

regards
t :)No, you can't, but this is a simple thing to do in IfoEdit - there's only 3 things to change in VIDEO_TS.IFO. And then you physically remove the VTS from the project folder.

The other way PgcEdit can do this is to author the DVD from scratch - start with New DVD and add menus and titles you want. Of course, you will need to play around with the nav commands, but that is what PgcEdit is wonderful for.

Regards

[CoNS]

Which settings do you use for doing a mock strip in VobBlanker? Do you process in input folder? Or simply leave all settings by their default and let VobBlanker copy/process the whole DVD to another folder?

No, you can't, but this is a simple thing to do in IfoEdit - there's only 3 things to change in VIDEO_TS.IFO. And then you physically remove the VTS from the project folder.Why would you want to remove it completely instead of blanking it (other than to make a "clean cut")?

How is the trick done in IfoEdit - which three things to change exactly?

[jeanl]

I have found the better mock strip now is VobBlanker - no question in my mind.
Regards
mmm yes, but it's much much slower. If you know you don't have to worry with cell commands etc, then an IFOEdit mock strip is OK, but you're right, it's not very safe...
jeanl

[CoNS]

blutach, could you go a bit more into details about the VobBlanker "mock strip"? See my above post.

[jeanl]

CoNS, I think you just process in place (or to another folder) but process all titles and all menus. Vobblanker recreates all the tables for you.
jeanl

[CoNS]

Ok, thx, jeanl.

I remember seeing a discussion elsewhere in the forum about the differences between mock strips performed in IfoEdit and VobBlanker, and I finally found it: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=635924#post635924

Looks like the IfoEdit mock strip is better in some respects according to jsoto's explanation?

[blutach]

@CoNS - Sorry it has taken so long to answer - I have been busy with clients these last couple of weeks :)

Yes just process in input folder. Select the VTS to mock strip (click on process for that one - or process all if you like) and then click on Process! No problems. You can actually strip and select all audio and cells, if you like but that takes longer.

As for removing titles and titlesets in IfoEdit it is all in VIDEO_TS.IFO

VMGM_MAT 0x003e Change to number of VTSs you have in remaining VTSs
VMG_PTT_SRPT 0x0000 Change to number of titles in remaining VTSs
VMG_VTS_ATRT 0x0000 Change to number of VTSs you have in remaining VTSs

Hope this helps

Regards

[CoNS]

Thx, and no worries! :)

Anyway, as I'm not a techie like you, I can't really tell if the differences between an IfoEdit and a VobBlanker mock strip described here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=635924#post635924) are still present in the later versions of VobBlanker. If yes, then IfoEdit would be the safe choice for mock stripping, or?

[blutach]

IfoEdit's mock strip has problems in that it doesn't carry over the cell commands (if any). This can be particularly nasty in menu VOBs but less so in title ones, where the only commands encountered are the occasional NOP around the LB and the usual LinkTailPGC preceding a 0.4 second blank cell at the end of a title.

Do a search on the IfoEdit thread - it's documented there. Wasn't too long ago the last post was made in it, either, IIRC.

Regards