2 CloneDVD programs?

[rahzel]

i didnt realize there was more than 1 CloneDVD program. The one i was familiar with was Slysoft's CloneDVD, but i just came accross this one:

http://www.clonedvd.net/clone-dvd.html

has anyone tried that program?
also, i heard cloneDVD can take the movie and menu only without choosing the extras, is this true? and if so, which cloneDVD can do that?

[Thomson]

Slysofts´s CloneDVD can take the movie + menues and skip the extras.
The other program i dont know if it will do to.

[rahzel]

thanks.

i did some research and found out that cloneDVD 3 (not the slysoft version) got rights to use the name and the program is inferior to cloneDVD 2 (slysoft version).

to keep the menu while deleting the extras, do i just delete the extras and tick "preserve menus"? sounds simple enough but i just wanted to make sure =]. Also, how is the quality compared to DVDShrink? ive been a dvdshrink user ever since ive owned a DVD burner and im going to be skeptical of using a new one.

im probably going to still use DVDShrink but even if you make all the extras still images, they usually still take up quite a bit of space so id rather delete them. If its still 100% with the extras as still images, ill just use Shrink.

and if you havnt noticed, id like to keep the menus =]. With MenuShrink, i can usually shrink menus down to 1-2MB.

[jeanl]

You can keep the menus and remove the extras with PgcEdit (free and very powerful). It's really simple, and that's usually what I do. I do a movie-only backup with menus:
- Rip DVD, then open in PgcEdit.
- Locate the movie titleset (the one with the longest running time).
- Use the "blank out all title PGCs in DVD" in the utilities menu, it will blank ALL the titlesets, except the ones you want to keep.
- Each time the function asks you to confirm, say OK except for the titleset that contains the movie for which you say "cancel".
- You're done!

Extra steps:
- Run the trace function (which plays the DVD as in a player) to catch any left-over annoying FBI warnings. If you spot one, stop the trace right there, and press the "kill pgc playback" icon (the movie strip with a red cross). Then continue the trace until you get where you want to go.
- Run menushrink if you still need some space.
- Burn using PgcEdit's very compliant burn utility (which uses mkisoft and DVDDecrypter).

You end up with a movie-only DVD with menu, and free of any of the usual annoyances (warnings, previews etc). It takes about 5mn, even if you're not used to it.

Jeanl

[rahzel]

thats it? i read blutach's guides of how to do movie and menu only but they seemed really confusing.

so i say yes to everything except the main movie and the menu? the main movie is obviously the longest one but how do i know which files are the menu?

[nwg]

how do i know which files are the menu?

The menus are usually in the same titleset as the movie. So, when you blank out all the other titlesets, the menu should be kept along with the movie automatically.

[jeanl]

It's even easier. The PgcEdit function I mentioned won't blank out menus, just titles, so there's no risk of destroying a menu. So even if you said "yes" to all, you'd end up with no movie, no extras, nothing, but you'd still have all the menus!!! Not very useful, but you get the point.
Yes, it's that easy. Then using the trace is only a little bit more involved but not much more! Once you get to play with PgcEdit, it's kind of fun...
And if you want to go even further, then you can disable the buttons that correspond to the extras, in the menus! PgcEdit lets you do that as well. I don't do it myself (you don't need to, if you press on any of these buttons, you'll find yourself back to the menu) but it's a good learning experience. You can also bypass aspect ratio or language menus... Anyway, there are many guides for pgcedit, you'll have fun exploring!

jeanl

[rahzel]

the main movie is usually only 1 title right? unless theres like an extended version or something, therefore having 2 titles (sometimes more).
so i just select the main movie and thats it?

[jeanl]

Yes, the main movie is the titleset that's very very large. YOu can see that by looking at the files in explorer, or looking at the PGC durations in PgcEdit (you'll see one that's 1 hour or more). In some cases there are two that are long (slightly different versions for example), but they will be in the same titleset. In some rare cases, you have the fullscreen and the widescreen version in the same DVD, but they will be in two different titlesets. YOu have to pick which one you want, and you can use the preview in PgcEdit to figure out which one is which...
Give it a shot, you'll see how simple it is... And if you screw up, PgcEdit keeps a backup, so no trouble!
jeanl

[rahzel]

thanks a lot guys, i was looking forever for an easy way to take the menu and movie only.

[jeanl]

Well, you have found it! Enjoy!
jeanl

[jm1647]

Since jeanl told me about this method, it is what I have been using. Simple, fast, and easy.

[rahzel]

got my DVD burner back from RMA yesturday and tried out PgcEdit. Worked like a charm and was very simple to block out everything but the main movie and menu, thanks again.