Two movies on one DVD with IfoEdit

[ebina]

Ok, since two people have asked for this recently, I will try and explain it. Bear in mind this is the easiest way I know to put two movies on one DVD with IfoEdit, and it is far from simple. I apologize in advance that I am a poor explainer.

You will need IfoEdit, and some piece of DVD authoring software to create your menus, I use DVDit. You will also need VobEdit which is from the same place as IfoEdit.

First author your two movies as single DVDs in separate directories using the "DVD Author" menu of IfoEdit. Next author your menu by authoring a dummy DVD with your authoring software which has a main menu with one button for each movie on your DVD. I use a short dummy movie for this so it authors quickly, and have each button point to that same clip. All that really matters is getting the menu.

Now create a directory for your final DVD. Copy the VIDEO_TS.IFO file from your menu DVD to the final DVD. Rename the VTS_01_0.VOB file from your menu DVD to VIDEO_TS.VOB and place it in the final DVD. Copy all the VTS_01_* files from your first DVD to your final DVD. Rename all the VTS_01_* files from your second DVD to VTS_02_* files and copy them to your final DVD.

Now use IfoEdit to open VIDEO_TS.IFO from your final DVD and press the "Get VTS Sectors" button. Press OK on the many dialogs as it corrects some pointers.

Now open VTS_01_0.IFO in your menu DVD. Select VTSM_PGCI_UT->LU_1 and scroll down until you see "Cell_1: last sector of this cell" Write down that sector number. Now open VIDEO_TS.IFO in your final DVD. Select VMGM_PGCI_UT->LU_1 and scroll down until you see the "Cell_1: last sector of this cell" line. Double-click this entry to edit it, and enter the number you wrote down before. Save the new VIDEO_TS.IFO for your final DVD.

Now open VIDEO_TS.IFO for your final DVD again and select VMGM_MAT->First Play PGC and scroll down to the "PGC Command Table". Double-click on the final Pre Command (a jump command) and change it to "[30 06 00 01 00 C0 00 00]". Now select VTSM_PGCI_UT->LU_1 and scroll down to the "PGC Command Table". The final Pre Command needs to be edited and changed to all zeros. Save the new VIDEO_TS.IFO for your final DVD.

Now open VIDEO_TS.IFO for your final DVD again and select VMG_PTT_SRPT.
Change the "Number of Title Play Maps" to 2. Change the "length of table" field to 31. Now select some other field in the upper pane and then select VMG_PTT_SRPT again. Scroll down to the Title_2 section at the bottom. Change the "Title playback type" to 125. Change the "Number of angles" to 1. Change the "Number of chapters" to however many chapters are in your second movie, if you don't know, just make it 1. Change the "Title set number" to 2. Change the "Title set Title-number" to 1. Now save the new VIDEO_TS.IFO for your final DVD.

Now open VIDEO_TS.IFO for your final DVD again and select "Get VTS Sectors" to correct some pointers again.

Make a backup copy of VIDEO_TS.VOB from your final DVD. Then open VIDEO_TS.VOB for your final DVD with VobEdit. VobEdit makes changes immediatly without prompting you so if you make any errors here, you will need to restore from your backup and start again. Select the "Button" toggle at the bottom, and then select the "Navigation Pack" which is at the top of the left pane. Scroll down the right pane to "Button Navigational Commands". Double-click the "Command" field of "Button 1" and change it to [30 02 00 00 00 01 00 00]. Double-click the "Command" field of "Button 2" and change it to [30 02 00 00 00 02 00 00]. Now close VobEdit.

Now, if everything went correctly, if you play your final DVD with a software player like PowerDVD you should start in your menu with a button for each movie. Button 1 will start playing movie one, and button 2 will play movie two. When a movie finishes playing the DVD will stop instead of returning to the menu. Our one menu is a Title menu and not a Root menu, so if played in a set-top player, when you hit the menu button while the movie is playing it will probably not return to the menu since most players only try the Root menu.

There is a way to make a dummy root menu for each movie which takes you back to the title menu, but the process is about six times as hard as what we have done so far.

It is relatively easy to make a movie return to the title menu after playing with the following steps:

Open VTS_01_0.IFO with IfoEdit (for movie two open VTS_02_0.IFO) and select VTS_PGCITI->VTS_PGC_1. Scroll down until you see "There is no PGC Command Table". Right-click on that message and select "Add PostCommand". Now double-click on the Post Command field, and change it to [30 08 00 01 01 C0 00 00]. Save the changed VTS_01_0.IFO file in your final DVD.

[royrose]

ebina,

I am trying to do something similar to what you describe. I have captured two old analog home videos and created a DVD using my Panasonic DMR-HS2 stand alone DVD recorder. It produces superb quality video but the menus are plain and boring. I want to replace the menus. I have copied the contents of the DVD into a folder on the hard drive of my computer and authored a menu with two buttons. I have several questions.

1) Are there any changes in your procedure that you recommend in my case?

2) Can you explain why you suggest renaming the VTS_01_0.VOB file to VIDEO_TS.VOB?

3) When the first movie ends, I want the second movie to start immediately as happens now with the Panasonic produced DVD. Is there anything I should do or not do?

I am new to this stuff but learning quickly.

Thanks, Roy

[ebina]

I'm sorry to say I have no idea if the procedure I describe will work for you as I have no idea how the two movies you have were authored by your DVD recorder

It may have created one big movie with two chapters one for each movie for all I know. The process for replacing menus in an existing DVD would be different than my description of combining two movies, and depends entirely on how the existing menus are authored. If you've extracted the movies as two separate set of VOBs using something like DVD decrypter in PGC mode, then my method of combining two movies should work.

I move VTS_01_0.VOB to VIDEO_TS.VOB because my method creates two different title sets and the only way I know to jump to a new title set is from a title menu. You can't do it from the root menu inside a different title set. The menus for title set 1 are stored in VTS_01_0.VOB, by moving it up to VIDEO_TS.VOB we are making it the title menu.

I'm sure there is a way to make the second movie start after the first. There will be a noticable pause, and I'm not sure of exactly which POST command to use as you are executing within titleset 1 and want to jump to title set two.

What you really want is probably two PGCs within a single VTS, and I've not experimented with that so I can't tell you how to do it.

[royrose]

Thanks for your reply. My recorder creates two separate movies, with a VTS_01_1.VOB and a VTS_02_VOB file. It has a VIDEO_TS.VOB file and not a VTS_01_0.VOB file. I will try to author a dummy dvd with as similar a menu structure as possible, then compare them and experiment from there.

I don't know if I will succeed, but I will have fun and probably some frustration trying.

Roy

[lugburz]

Ebina
what about more than two movies? it's posible follow your guide
for creating a menu with 3 o 4 clips.I have some minidvd i would like to join in one dvd-r,but i didn't like to group them in two vob.
thanks

[maa]

If you're not bothered about menus then keep dragging your clips from DVDshrinks main - to the re-author window!
That makes a multiple VTS DVD with the correct navigation to jump from one clip to the next.