I now have a collection of live concert songs in .vob format made using fab vob passthru on my HD and renamed with meaningful names.
That's all I now have on HD, I did not preserve any of teh other DVD structure files that were created in the vob passthrou process.

So now is there any way to put these song files back onto a blank DVD so that they will play in a stand-alone player. I can play them in sequence on PC by using a playlist in PowerDVD, but can't figure out how to play them on a stand-alone player.

I know that there was a method described recently usign both fab and shrink but that required keeping the DVd structure folders for each individual song on the HD and I & don't want to have to re do all of my songs from the origianl DVDs again.

I don't even need a DVD front end menu, or fancy chapter points ( though it would be nice if each song was one chapter), I just want to be able to make a file + folder format that my stand-alone players will accept, via a simple software interface, and then burn it with fab or with another burner

I have never tried this, but I think it could be done using a combination of several other software applications. If you used DVDFab Merge mode to put these together, you could have burned the Merge output to a DVD and used the Merge temp files to create the VOB passthroughs all in one step. The DVD created could be navigated using the Title select controls in most players. If you try it this way in the future, remember to UNcheck "Delete Temporary Files When Done" in Common Settings.

Hey cybmole, You could use DVDStyler or DVD Album 1.1 or DVDAuthorGUI to make your DVD structure folders again. They are all free and they all accept .mpg extensions.(DVDAuthorGUI accepts .vob and does not require you to create a menu.) I really liked signals' idea of using merge mode for dual outputs. That's quite clever. An idea I thought you guys might want to try is to use a little known program called Titlewriter.(It's free too.) Use your merge mode compilation and quickly create a new menu and insert it into the DVD structure folders. Great little menus and they even support multiple audio tracks. By making menus this way, you are not re-encoding anything. Titlewriter was originally written to add titles to the DVD structure for DVD jukebox type players. The program has added this make menu feature that is awesome. It was intended to be used with DVD shrink re-author mode. Since DVDFab Platinum has Main Movie and Merge modes that are comparable, I have been able to make some really nice and extremely quick menus. I hope this program will catch on here in the Fab community. I'm interested to hear what you decide to do to get your .mpgs or .vobs back to the DVD Folders. Keep us posted.

Great suggestions from nodebt(lucky)dude. I will try Titlewriter also, it sounds like a handy tool. Cybmole the ball is in your court, let us know what works well for you.

I forgot to mention: Titlewriter is a little lacking in the documentation department. The guide for it is included in the Help section of the program itself. PM me if you guys want some further tips on the proggie. Here's a screenshot of a simple menu that I will make from a DVDFab Merge compilation of 4 titles. Make Menu section of Titlewriter set this up for me automatically.(Prior to any text or thumbnail changes) Maybe you could consider this for one of your future tutorials, signals?

thanks guys, I'll searech for those orograms, unless anyone can post download links.

I havve some other stuff that I want to write to DVD, it's a documentary series by James Burke called connections. Although it was originally a BBC documentary series, it is unavailable on DVD in the UK except as a Very expensive import, so I've managed to get series 1 as .avi downloads. I'd like to put those onto DVDs & I did try a trial program called imtoo dvd ceator but it was a flop. took 2 hours to reencode 1 show, then it would not play on my stand-alone anyway, though to be fair to them it did play as a DVD on my PC.

anyway I've just googled DVDstyler while I was typing - here's the website:
http://www.dvdstyler.de/
I'll try this today & report back.

DVDstyler didn't cope with the 1st test. I gave it 2 VOBs from different PAL DVDs. one was in 4x3 and one in 16x9. I noticed that it tried to convert from PAL to NTSC, which I don't want, and failed on that, and I also got a 1st impression tht it would be trying to re-encode the audio, as it wanted me to select either MP2 or AC3. so it's not going to preserve any surround sound.
I then asked it ot try the Connections .avi's & got "unknown format"
So it's on to the next program......
http://download.videohelp.com/liquid217/dvdauthorgui.pl

no luck with dvdauthorgui either. using 3 VOBs created fromt eh same music DVD but getting error messages like "invalid frame rate", and apect ratio warnings even though these were created with FAb's vob passthru so frame rates should be unchanged - see below for sample.

I've concluded that a better method is to go back & start over using the combination of Fab & Shrink cusomtise options( for specific title/chapter selection ripsfromt he DVd that I want to combine) and then dvdfab's merge option for rec-ombining as described elsewhere.

DVDAuthor::dvdauthor, version 0.6.14.
Build options: gnugetopt iconv freetype
Send bugs to <dvdauthor-users@lists.sourceforge.net>

INFO: Locale=C
INFO: Converting filenames to US-ASCII
INFO: dvdauthor creating VTS
STAT: Picking VTS 01

STAT: Processing C:\VIDEO\Pink Floyd\MOSTLY AUTUMN Pink Floyd Covers\Comfortably Numb - Mostly Autumn - all audio streams.VOB...
WARN: not a valid DVD frame rate: 30.0
WARN: attempt to update tv format from pal to ntsc; skipping
WARN: attempt to update frame rate from 30.0 to 30000.0/1001.0 (NTSC VIDEO); skipping
WARN: attempt to update aspect ratio from 4:3 to 16:9; skipping

then, later:
ERR: SCR moves backwards, remultiplex input.

Process aborted due to above error
Error code #7
There was an error in the authoring process. It appears that something is wrong with the muliplexed VOB files.

@cybmole
Thanks for the great legwork finding and trying all this stuff out and for posting the results. Hope it works when you re-do your project. TitleWriter looks like the cream of the crop to me.

@nodebtdude
And special thanks to you for bringing TitleWriter and the other applications to our attention (and a belated welcome to the DVDFab forum--don't be a stranger). I read many of the TW threads that google produced and the author is relentless in fixing bugs and adding features . I am a little backed up on guide writing right now but I can sure see a place for TW in the next revision of the Merge guide. A big plus that TW is still being actively developed. Thanks again.

Hey cybmole, Sorry to hear of your continued problems. I have been successful with both DVDStyler and DVDAuthor GUI. I used vob passthrough and renamed with .mpg extension before using both programs. These produced some skipping. I did find it necessary to use GSpot and find which codecs were needed to play the mpegs properly, then used the pulldown menu to re-register those particular ones, as they were already installed on my PC. (GUI for DVDAuthor) another freeware--- supports DTS in case you are up for another try. Titlewriter is the only (free) program that I have found that will not re-render -- but it does need the DVD Folders already created.


Hey signals, Thanks for the hospitality!