What to do about a 8GB DVD?

[sam_i_am]

The source DVD is 8 GB total.
SmartRipper created 8GB of files
Nero says my 4.7GB destination is too small-duh

I give up. How did they fit 8Gig on a DVD? Why can't I buy 8 GB DVD-R's

-and-more importantly...

How can I back it up to another DVD?

(no Divx or VCD thanks)

[charker]

DVD-R disks are only 4.7GB, infact when you split the DVD you will get just over 4GB on each DVD-R, or a movie that's around 100 minutes (depending on sound tracks, DD, DTS, Dir Commentry etc)

The commercial DVD is 2 layered, 2 surfaces on one side giving 9GB.

Check out this article

http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/articles/dvd2dvdr_more.html

There is a wicked bit of software called IFOEdit which can do the business along with stripper software you are already using. Basically you use:

stripper to split the DVD by splitting the rip into two folders (movie1, movie2), say chapters 1-20 in one folder, 21 - 40 in another.

you then copy the video.ifo file from the DVD into both folders.

You run IFOEdit and open the video.ifo folder. You then tick a few boxes and click a few buttons. You can elect to drop soundtracks (say DTS or dir commentry, subtitles etc). It then copies and modifies the files into 2 destination directories (video1, video2 say). When it has finished doing the mod use Nero to burn video1 and video2 onto two DVD-R disks. The IFOEDit copy takes about as long as the original rip.

You will end up with movies with no menus so they play straight away when you insert them. Additional featurettes will be missing but chapters and subtitles will be there.

IF you use IFOEdit and remove the "extras" such as featurettes, foreign language soundtracks, the DTS additional soundtrack maybe and the dir commentry you could end up with a much smaller "image" that will fit ona single DVD-R.

IF you do a smartstrip of all chapters into one dir and use IFOEdit to remove the extras AND the resultant VIDEO folder is less than 4.7 GB then a single DVD-R will do the job. I have found that if the final .VOB file (number 5, they are numbered, 1,2,3,4,5 and are about 1GB each) is less than 400MB it will fit a single disk. NERO will error anway if the image it too big. If it is too big use IFOEdit to remove more extras, it's trail and error really.

So 30 mins to strip it, 30 mins to IFOEdit it. Repeat over and over until it fits! then 60 mins to burn it. Woosh!

Bascially give yourself and couple of hours of messing around and you should end up with something that plays. Given that DVD's are dropping in price and you will lose all the extras it does make you wonder whether it's worth the time!

Cliff

[sam_i_am]

Cliff--Thanks !

Cliff, thanks for taking the time to outline the strategy. Without you [and forums such as this] tips, tricks and techniques would take forever to learn or ferret out.

Again Thanks!

Mike, Raleigh NC