Combining/CompressingReauthoring/.. phew!?

[mo24]

I've got four separate conference DVDs that I would like to combine into one. The total size of all of them together comes to around 11.5GB, which is going to take some major compression to fit onto a single layer DVD. Quality is irrelevant since most of it is all audio (but I -do- want to keep the video portion also).

DVD-Shrink only seems to allow about a 50% compression, whereas I will need around 65% give or take. I think I may try running it through twice and see if the video is still recognizable. Otherwise, perhaps run it through an encoder after compressing with DVD-Shrink (Would this work? since dvd-shrink messes with B&P frames and an encoder changes the I frames?)

Well, if I can get that taken care of, here comes the real tricky part. All four of the DVDs have menus that I must leave intact. (Or at the minimum, be able to reproduce) since it allows one to navigate between the different speakers at the conference easily. I'm not sure how to join all four together while leaving the menus for each intact. What I had in mind was having the first menu being a "Select which part, 1 through 4, that you want to view" and then have it change into the original menus for whichever part is selected.

I've found a lot of bits and pieces in other prior posts about this sort of thing, but i'm having trouble putting it all together. I think this is going to be tough, but I would like to learn it, since if I can figure this out I can do a lot of other things I would like to with other DVD sets. Any suggestions would be appreciated.. i'm not really sure what path I should start on in order to accomplish this. I've currently got TGMPEnc-DVDAuthor, DVD-Shrink, DVD-Decrypter, and DVD-RB to work with. Thanks.

[mo24]

Nevermind.. I surprised myself. I started playing around with TGMPEnc.. a couple hours later I'd figured out how to smash them all together and even created custom menus for all of them that look like the originals (better if I may say so ). Perfect.

Still working on the issue of how to get it all compressed down enough though...

[blutach]

Have you tried re-encoding with TMPGEnc. to a lower bitrate?

Regards

[mo24]

After my last post I tried running it through dvd-shrink and then dvd-rb to encode it, figuring after it was shrunk the encoding wouldn't take long, but I was wrong.. I decided to just re-encode the whole thing and leave it on overnight. After it was done, it was 4.8Gb instead of the usual 4.4Gb (ish) and wouldn't fit on the disc. Maybe it reached its theoretical limit being reduced to 35%.. i've not had that happen before with dvd-rb/hcencoder. I ran it back through shrink after that, only 90% was needed, so there was also little quality loss, and it's working fine now.

I don't have TMPGEnc (plus) at the moment, so I haven't tried encoding with that. How does it do compared to other software out there? Better than shrink, worse than HC? HCEncoder sure took its time doing an 11Gb encode.

[blutach]

HCEnc will take time on 11Gb that's for sure. I reckon it's about an hour per Gb (2 pass best quality).

Dunno why it didn't size properly. Did you use RVBOpt with DVDRB? Very very unusual as jdobbs sets the output to 4.32Gb and I have not heard it going over on default mode - ever!

Regards

[nwg]

It's so nice to see people work out how to do things on their own. Well done.

I also sometimes get oversize with DVD-RB. I recently got 4.42GB using CCE 1 pass. I find it is mainly my own authored DVD's that it happens with.

You could try Quenc instead of HCEncoder. It should be a little faster than HC and I have never had a oversize with it. Jdobbs did a request in for me for Quenc in DVD-RB. It is a quick one pass encode that I use for anything with a 80% and above reduction.

[blutach]

Thanks for the info nwg

Regards

[mo24]

Thanks for the suggestions, i'll keep it in mind for the future.

Now that this is complete, i'm thinking of creating a 'best episodes' DVD from a few series I have. Creating a custom menu from scratch should be easy with DVDAuthor, but i'd like to try actually keeping the original menus and doing some editing to them (more for the learning experience than anything), which makes things more complicated.

The movie has one main animated menu. This one would not need any editing, and i'd like to keep it as it is. Then there is a title menu to select the episode, and subsequent chapter menus for that episode. These menus are 'still' pictures and not animated. I would like to be able to take the existing background images from those menus and merely change the text on each of them to match each Episode's name, maintaining the menu functionality. I'd also like to be able to alter the thumbnail image for each of the buttons, although that might be considered background as well. Then, combine the original main menu with the new editted menus and have a functional menu again. (perhaps with a little editing with PGCedit to fix the button links to the new episodes if necessary)

I've seen some programs here and there that can do a part of this, but none that can do all of it. DVDStyler for example allowed imported background images, but doesn't seem to keep the original menu. DVDAuthor allowed custom menus to be created, but doesn't allow imported ones. DVDLab, from what i've read, also cannot do all of this (although I haven't downloaded it). Is there a program out there that can do what i'm wanting? (it would be a goldmine if so)

[nwg]

You can create your own still backgrounds using any image editor. PGCedit can be used to import the image as a menu background.

It can also be doen (probably easier and better) using DVDRemake Pro. This will cost money though. It is worth it. It is also possible to merge up to four DVD's onto one DVD and keep the individual DVD menus. It creates its own title menu where you get up to four DVD's to choose from.

There is a limited demo which you can try.

DVDRemake Pro

[mo24]

Looks like I need to give PGCEdit some more of my time to learn. I also just stumbled across this link while sifting through more search results:

http://dvdguides.netgeekhosting.com/guides/edit_menu/

Off to do some more experimenting.. if I can't figure it out i'll give DVDRemake a try. Thanks.

[Taelon]

Yes that's a great guide, I reauthor menus all the time with PgcDemu, PgcEdit, MuxMan, VobBlanker... it's alot of steps but once you've done it once it's pretty easy and works perfectly.

Just one caveat, if you have 16:9 menu's you need to do some tweaking of the process (especially regarding muxman) give a shout if that's the case.

[blutach]

@mo - here's an idea. Load the DVD with the menu you want in VobBlanker. Replace the various titles with the titles of the "best of" eps you have re-authored somewhere (eg with DVD Shrink in no-compression mode).

In PgcEdit, use the menu editor to ensure the buttons go to where you want them to. Even make new buttons if necessary.

Use DVDRB (or whatever you prefer personally) to compress, if necessary.

Regards

[blutach]

I also fully endorse nwg's ideas. DVDRMP - see my sig, can combine DVDs in one click. Takes a bit of learning initially just to understand the interface, but is an essential tool, IMHO.

See here for guide on how to do this.

Regards

[nwg]

The merge DVD part of DVDRemake Pro is simply ingenious. It is so easy to do. Load each DVD in a separate project. Select Merge DVD's and choose the projects as Disc 1, 2 etc. Then merge away. Up to four DVD's can be done.