Merge chapters

[r0lZ]

If the main movie (Title 5) is alone in its own PGC, you don't have to use the Play All trick, as it doesn't need to be merged with the other titles. Just verify the PUOs, the Time Map, and remove the not-sequential flag, and it should be "seekable".

In the other hand, if it is spread in several PGCs, then you may have to merge them in one single title. If it's the case, use the Play All trick, but remove all cells not pertaining to the main movie from the new Title, and leave the bonus titles (with the buttons) unchanged.

BTW, buttons in Titles are always called BOVs. That doesn't mean that they are not "normal". They have just another name, because it is somewhat unusual to put buttons in titles, so they have been called "Buttons Over Video", or "BOVs".

[VRYK]

The main movie (title 5) is not flagged as NOT One-Sequential – it is Titles 2, 3 and 4 that are so flagged. Nevertheless, the cursor is inoperative when playing the main movie (I take this to be the “seekable” property to which you refer), Presumably the non-sequential titles are impacting on Title 5 which is in VTS 3 with just one TTN. The VTSM 3 domain has 28 PGCs which include Chapter menus.

[r0lZ]

No, there is no "impact" of a title on another one. If the title is made of only a single PGC, you can enable the seekbar. The only important thing to verify is the TTN number of the Title. It the same TTN number is not reused in the same VTST domain, then the title is made of a single PGC, and it can safely be flagged as sequential, you can remove the PUOs and rebuild the Time Map. Don't forget the PUOs in the VOBs and in the Title Play Map table. If you clear the relevant PUOs and you set the flags correctly, that should work.

[VRYK]

Many thanks for your reply.
A slightly related question, if I may. A main feature is split into two DVD 5s which could be squeezed onto a DVD9. The 2 DVD 5s are identical with a single title containing the main feature. Is it possible to merge the two title 1 contents ?

[r0lZ]

Well, there are methods to merge two DVDs in a DL-DVD, but it's not the two parts of the main movie that are merged. Your DL-DVD will contains two DVDs, completely separated, as if they were on different discs. You can switch from one DVD to the other one, but that has exactly the same effect than removing the DVD from the drive and inserting the other one. It's only a bit more rapid. Since I don't think it's a good idea, and DL-DVDs are more fragile and more expansive than SLs, I have never implemented that trick in PgcEdit. You can do it manually, but it's complex and long.

You can also merge the two parts of the main movie. You have to demux the two movies, then merge them with muxman, and import the movie back in the DVD 1. (It is also possible to use VobBlanker to merge the 2 movies, but I have never used that method.) Anyway, there is a problem with the Chapter menu (if any). It will only contain the buttons to jump to the first part of the movie. If it's a problem, you have to import the second part of the menu, and again, it's a long and difficult job, not easy to explain, as it depends to the original authoring.

There is also a third method. You can simply import the second part of the movie as an additional VTS, and modify the post-commands of the first part of the movie to jump (through a new VMGM PGC) to the second part. There will be a slight delay between the two parts, but it's much easier, and you can import the second chapter menu easily. Anyway, that method requires also to edit many things. For example, you will not have the Root, Audio and Subtitle menus in the right VTS any more, so you will have to create a lot of dummy VMGM PGCs to bounce from part 2 to part 1 and vice versa, and add several buttons to make it possible to jump from part one of the chapter menu to part 2 and from part 2 to part 1. Again, it is impossible to explain exactly how to do it, as the method depends of the original authoring.

IMO, it is better to keep two good single-layer DVDs than going into the trouble of that job, for a poor result.

[VRYK]

My apologies for the tardy response, but I have been on holidays. Many thanks for your reply which sets out clearly the issues involved. In the present case, there are no chapter menus, the presence of which seems to be the major complicating element in merging the two DVD_5s..
I have put together a working version following your third method; i.e. using PgcEdit’s File-Import VTS Titles command.. While the PGC Editor provides for removing cells, I take it that the new VTST’s cells cannot be simply added to those of the existing VTST.

As regards the second method you list (the MuxMan route), do you use PgcDemux for demuxing?

[r0lZ]

Yes, the chapter menu is the more difficult thing to handle. Without it, the muxman method decomes much more easy. Try it!

While the PGC Editor provides for removing cells, I take it that the new VTST’s cells cannot be simply added to those of the existing VTST.

Correct, because they are in different VTSs.

As regards the second method you list (the MuxMan route), do you use PgcDemux for demuxing?

Yes. It's certainly the best VOB demuxer.

[VRYK]

Many thanks for your reply.

> Without it, the muxman method becomes much more easy. Try it!<
Well, I’ve tried it, but have come unstuck somewhere. I demuxed both DVDs – the resulting video, andio and subtitle files, which seemed OK, were then loaded into their respective Muxman frames, the DVD2 files being added to the DVD1 files. Both of the second audio streams appear in red – but give no error message.
However, there was a problem with DVD1’s first subtitles stream : « Stream 1 has no modes selected ». I went ahead, nevertheless, but Muxman reported : « Multiplex operation failed. Probably caused by excessive bitrate ».
I wonder if the error might have been in my demuxing. In PgcDemux I set the mode to « byVOBid ».
Incidentally, PgcDemux’s options include « Create a PGC VOB ». When should this box be ticked ?

[r0lZ]

You should demux by PGC. Don't forget to save the cellstimes.txt file. (You'll need them to recreate the chapter points). "Create PGC VOB" is used to create a new VOB with the content of the current PGC. It's useful, for example, if you need to replace a cell with VobBlanker with a new VOB. Muxman can't mux already muxed VOBs, so you should not use that option.

For the audio streams, I don't know why they are red in muxman.

For the subtitles, set the flag of the display mode corresponding to the 16:9 or 4:3 mode of the original subtitle stream. In some 16:9 movies, there are two streams for the same language. One is for the 16:9 mode, and the other for the 4:3 letterboxed or pan&scan mode. Usually, the same stream is used for both modes, and you should therefore enable the two modes in muxman.

You should also include the cellstimes.txt file if you want to recreate the chapter points. You may have to concatenate the two original subtitle streams, and add the number of frames of DVD 1 to the chapter points of DVD 2. (You can optionally create the celltimes.txt files with PgcEdit. It's probably easier, as it has an option to automatically add a certain number of frames to the chapter points.)

Excessive bitrate is a problem that can occur if the original streams are not DVD compatible. That should not be the case here. Another reason might be that you have included the same stream too many times. But muxman is very picky, and sometimes it refuses to mux some streams extracted from commercial DVDs. It it's the case, you're out of luck!

Honestly, I'm not a specialist of muxman, and I don't remember exactly how to join two movies. Search the forums (here and at Doom9), and you should find the answer, or even a guide.

[VRYK]

Thanks for your help. I had another shot, changing the demuxing mode to byPGC, still got the same error message. I checked out a couple of Internet sites, but haven’t found the solution yet – apparently bitrates can fluctuate sufficiently to cause problems. Maybe I’m just out of luck. Anyhow, I’ll put this to one side for the moment until I can become more familiar with Muxman..
Another matter for which I would aappreciate your advice is creating a DVD from avi files which would constitute the chapters. Sometime backI attempted this but the result was pretty miserable (couldn’t edit the thumbnail chapter images, etc). I don’t remember which programme this was, but I wonder if you would be able to recommand an application ?. I see on this Forum a giide to an apparently rather buggy (0.4.2 beta) version of AVI2DVD – but this was back in 2005 (the current version is 0.6.4.

[r0lZ]

I don't do many conversions from AVI, but I've used DVD Flick in the past, and it worked well (although in some cases you may have slight A/V sync problems). However, I'm almost sure it will put every source AVI in a different title. AFAIK, all programs do that, as it's too difficult to handle different AVIs with different encoding parameters as a single unit). If you want to merge the titles as different chapters of the same title, you will have to use muxman (again!), or Womble MPEG Video Wizard DVD. (WMVWD is expensive and it has a terrible GUI, but it can reauthor a new DVD with new chapter points, from an existing VOB, without re-encoding it.)

You can perhaps also merge all AVIs in a single MKV with MkvMerge (part of mkvtoolnix), and then convert the MKV to DVD with DVD Flick or a similar tool. Of course, all AVIs must have the same structure (same codecs, encoding parameters, number of streams, bitrate, image size, aspect ratio, etc...) And you will have to recreate the chapter points manually (with VobBlanker).

[VRYK]

Thanks very much for the guidance.