Need Help Blanking a DVD Title

[drfsupercenter]

Hi,

I have several DVDs I've ripped to my hard drive... and I can't seem to shrink them well.

The problem is, they're all dual-format... including both widescreen and fullscreen. I really only need widescreen in my backups (if I ever wanted to watch fullscreen anyway I could just use the originals)

If I just use VobBlanker to blank the fullscreen title, the disc crashes if you accidentally select fullscreen. Instead, I want to put in a bitmap image that says "This title has been disabled to save space. Please press Menu and select Widescreen". I even have the bitmap made already.

If I use "a certain free transcoder" in "still image" mode, it just jumps to some random title, and not the actual image. VobBlamker doesn't seem to have an option to do what I am trying to do.

Does anyone know any free/trial software that can do what I'm describing? I don't feel like compressing two titles if I only need to do one.

Thanks

PS - I already tried blanking the menu like some people suggested before... so no need to suggest that. It doesn't work on that type of disc.

[r0lZ]

IMO, the easiest way is this method.

Open the DVD in VobBlanker. Select the VTS in the upper pane and the title PGC in the lower pane, and click the "Cells" button. Select the first cell. Click on the "Still" button. Drop your BMP on the Motion2Still window. You should see it in the viewport. Repeat that procedure for all cells in the title (except the last one if it's a tiny black cell.) Accept all, and process that VTS. Done.

Your bitmap must be a BMP image with exactly the same resolution than the original video frame, and you must have the free version of Muxman installed on your computer.

Note that we have replaced the cell by your bitmap, and not blanked the PGC. IMO, your DVD will work fine.

[blutach]

Note you can make your own still image for selection in certain transcoders that support this method - eg Recode. I made a black frame. Just make sure the size is 720 x 576 for PAL (720 x 480 NTSC). The size is a lot less than other stills.

There are also cool insert clips at the link in my signature.

Note - some DVDs are authored that after you have selected say FS, then next time you hit play movie it will go back to FS (i.e. it will "remember" your selection). The only way to get round this is to eject and insert the DVD again (or re-author the DVD so that the button selecting the FS title is replaced by the same command that selects the WS one).

Regards

[drfsupercenter]

Well, when I tried it to the "one we can't talk about that's like Recode", and put Still Image, it just killed the DVD when I selected fullscreen. It didn't show the image at all.

Would it show the picture in Recode? I don't know why it didn't work...

And most of the DVDs I'm backing up have a "screen format" option under Set-Up, that you can change without ejecting the DVD.

--EDIT--

OK, in Recode it works, but it's still over 700MB...

However, some of them don't have the menu choice like blutach said...
So back to the menu-button editing, is there any way to just have it jump to the menu that it would if I selected "widescreen" right off the bat instead of the selection screen? (They have seperate menus from what I can tell)

If it helps any, I can post IFOs and the menu VOB

[blutach]

Yes, use PgcEdit's Jump to PGC Upon DVD Insert function.

Do not post IFOs or VOBs - they are not allowed, as you well know.

Regards

[drfsupercenter]

When did they become not allowed? When they got rid of the decrypting forums?

And I'll try that... so I can then blank the fullscreen title and it won't hurt the navigation?

[r0lZ]

There are two method:

- "Jump to PGC upon DVD insert" will jump to any menu or title of your choice when you insert the DVD, bypassing everything that is normally played. Of course, you have to jump somewhere after the AR selection menu.

- You can also use Kill PGC Playback on the AR menu PGC. When you kill it, select the button that must be simulated when the navigation reaches that PGC. Take care with this method. For example, you cannot use it to bypass a bonus menu and jump directly to a specific bonus, as when the navigation will return from the bonus to the killed menu, it will be redirected again to the bonus, and you will be unable to return to the main menu. Usually, it is safe to kill a menu that is played only once at the beginning of the DVD.

[drfsupercenter]

The problem with this is that the PGC for the AR menu is the same as the other menus.

If I kill playback, it kills ALL menus, not just that. Additionally, the same thing happened when I "jump to PGC", it just went back to the same thing.

The thing that I found works is to enable trace mode, find the line that opens the AR selection menu, and set it to the same value as pressing "widescreen". When I opened it in a software player, it bypassed the AR selection and went straight to the menu (and the movie was the widescreen version).

Thanks for the suggestions anyway, I don't know why they didn't work, but I think the way I tried should work for most of my DVDs.

[r0lZ]

Well, putting all menus in the same VTS is very rare, but can happen! In this case, indeed, there are no easy universal way to bypass it. Using the trace to understand what command should be modified or copied elsewhere is, indeed, the better solution. I'm glad you found it!

[blutach]

The thing that I found works is to enable trace mode, find the line that opens the AR selection menu, and set it to the same value as pressing "widescreen". When I opened it in a software player, it bypassed the AR selection and went straight to the menu (and the movie was the widescreen version).

Yes, that will work - you are getting quite advanced.

Regards

[drfsupercenter]

Well, putting all menus in the same VTS is very rare, but can happen! In this case, indeed, there are no easy universal way to bypass it. Using the trace to understand what command should be modified or copied elsewhere is, indeed, the better solution. I'm glad you found it!

I have about four DVDs that have the widescreen/fullscreen menu, and they are all in the same PGC.
I don't know why... but they are all by Sony/Columbia, maybe it's just something their DVDs have.