Well it took me a while, but here it is all in one place and and top heavy with graphics

Complete idiots guide

I know when you see it, you will think "do I really have to go through all that just to do episodes on one DVD" The answer is simple, this method works, it really does not take a long time to do and once you are used to it you can get a full episode DVD in less than an hour (not inc burning time)

I would be interested in feedback, but would ask that you leave it here in this thread, I read the forum quite regularly and should see it easily.

If you spot any obvious errors let me know and I will correct them.

Slammer

Thank you! This is an OUTSTANDING GUIDE!
TeFLoN

Outstanding! Just finished "Ice Age" and works like a charm.

Looks good m8.

Nice work!

Thank you very much mate, looks outstanding!! I havent tried it yet, but will do very soon

D

What is a episodic dvd and can you give me a current dvd that I can see as an example. I know that this question might seem simple but I would like someone to explain it to me. Thanks in advance.

Its basically a TV series disc such as Simpsons, Friends, 6 Feet Under, etc where all the epiosed are seperate, usually with the same VOB name etc and no links to the next one. Thats how I understand it anyway, but lack the more technical info on the hows and whys of it.

D

Slammer,

I use an easier method that doesn't require VobEdit and may/may not require DVD2ONE.

1). As you describe, use DVD Decrypter in <F>ile mode to transfer all the files to HDD. Make note of which VTS is the main movie (always the largest size for serial episodic DVD/s).

2). Make another directory called MAIN_MOVIE or whatever, and a subdirectory of VIDEO_TS.

3). Open IfoEdit, open the VTS_xy_0.IFO of the main movie, hit "VOB Extras" then check all but the first and last choices under "Options" and then check the first two and last two under "VOB Expert Options." VOB Size should be 1 GB. Ignore Angles and Seamless branching. Select the VIDEO_TS directory that you created in step 2 above. "Autocopy menu files to destination" should be checked.

4). Click <OK>. In the next window that appears, select your English or whatever languange, no subtitles. Click "Strip It."

5). In the next window, click "Select All" to check all VOB ID's. Then click "Strip It" again.

6). Once that stripped version is complete, open its VIDEO_TS.IFO and click "Get VTS Sectors" as always, again with IfoEdit.

7). If that directory is less than 4.37 GB, well then you are ready to burn. If not, run DVD2ONE on that to resize it down, putting it into another directory that also has a VIDEO_TS subdirectory.

See, this way you only have to run DVD2ONE one time and do not have to join all these episode's VOB's. Its much easier and basically gives you the same result.

leisuredoc

Thanks for all your comments.

leisuredoc - Which of these is the main movie? It's a 1600 x 1200 image and may take a little time to load.

which is the main movie?

The example I used in my guide has all the episodes in one vob set, this one does not and yet I used the same method to rip it to one DVDr. Now I am not saying your method will not work. I am merely posing a question, can you confirm? I am assuming you would have to run your method on all the seperate vob sets
to achieve the same result.

Might be a good idea for you to do a similar "idiots guide" complete with screen grabs? That way people will have the best of both worlds

Slammer

Great guide mate, but I have the problem of too many vobs
Mainly the film "Rose Red" on 2 Disks total of 12 Vobs
Ifoedit ect doesn't seem to see past 9
Any Ideas?

The obvious answer would be to leave it on 2 discs that way you only need 2 x 6 vobs. However having said that, you can merge the vobfiles to reduce the number of vobfiles you need ifoedit to process. Use Vstrip to do this, set the output size to 4gig and it will create merged/appended vobs that are 4 gig in size instead of 1gig

You could do this with the 1st disc and then go on to do the same with the second disc then join them as in my guide with Vobedit.

This is a screenshot of the whole farscape 4.1 directory processed like this.....

Joined farscape vobs @ 4 gig output size

Does that help?

Slammer

Thanks Slammer I'll try that. I just need to get a hold of vstrip
Avensis

Following your guide to the 'T'.
When I use Vobedit the first time and have the "A" folder open, I click on edit-join clips, the box that comes up says "save as" not open. I clicked on the 001 fle in "B" which does ask for the new vob-id. When I enter that and click OK, nothing seems to happen.
What am I missing?
Thanks.

ADD: Is this what you meant:
After you jot down the VOB ID in "a", open the 001 file in "B" and THEN click on edit. It seemed to work when I did that. Vobedit does say "save as" and not "open".

Hello, I am very new at dvd burning and have been going absolutely insane reading these posts and trying to make sense of things. Not to upset anybody because I believe all the guides here have been very helpfull but not to my particular situation.

The first thing that seems to happen when I am trying to make a back-up of my dvd is that when I launch the DVD Decrypter tool it does not come up with any .VOB files to be decrypted at all! Instead there are what are called PGC Files. One for each Episode on the disc. Now, I can only select one of these PGC files at a time. However all of the chapters in each PGC file are checked.

When I go ahead and perform a rip it does not seem to grab all the data from each PGC file. Instead I only get what would appear to be the first episode including all of its chapters. For the life of me I do not know what is going on with this type of file or how to correctly rip it so I can make a back-up copy. Can anyone help!?

Sincerely Frustrated,
Protocol

Slammer,

Wow! I have never seen a video structure like this! In this sort of case, I'm going to have to defer to your guide. I've been somewhat lucky in that all of the serial episode DVD's that I've tried had the episodes all in the same Video Title Set (vts).

Anyway, many thanks for the best way to handle something like this!

Best regards,

leisuredoc

Protocol - from the menu choose "mode" then "file" you will now have a Vob listing - then use "Edit" Select all"

Hope this helps

Slammer

OK - here's my problem. I experienced this recently on "The Shining" and now on "Band Of Brothers".

When I rip the VOB files and then check them with a PC DVD player the epsiodes are not in chronological order.

In "Band Of Brothers" case there are 2 episodes on each disc. On the 1st disc the SECOND episode is what the VOB file(s) start(s) with and THEN the 1st one. The transition from one episode to the next happens right in the MIDDLE of a VOB file.

So what I did is this - I encoded the 1st episode with DVD2OONE into one folder - then I did the same with the second episode into a different folder. Then I renamed the VOB files of the second episode so that they build a strand with the 1st one. Then I used IFOEdit to create a new IFO file for this strand and then ran it through DVD2ONE again to get the right file size.

When I check the VOB files in the resulting folder the episodes ARE in the right order. But as soon as I burn it onto a disc - the disc ALWAYS starts with the second episode first!!! This is driving me insane - what IS THIS!!??

AAARRRRGHHHHH - NEED HELP!!

LohseParas - You can fix it by changing the "start PGC" parameter in ifoedit, and point it at the first chapter in the first episode. You will need to read the ifoedit tutorials to check exactly where to find it (the tutorials are mentioned in a few posts as being on fr0zen?)

Slammer

@slammer99uk

Hi, for the first, sorry for my bad english! I`m german and my school-time is long ago.
Your guide looks very simple, can you translate into german???
When not, is it allowed that i surch for someone who does it??

Thanks for your answer.
Regards,
wombel33

wombel33 - I have no objection to someone else translating it - It just will not be me

Slammer

Will this method work with movies on double sided discs such as BenHur. Title 1 on first side composing 7 VOB files and title 2 on second side composing 5 Vob files. I am having an audio sync problem for the second half of the movie when I create new IFO's and then reencode. I decided to rename, create new IFO's and then use DVD2One. Burned it to disk and the second half of the movie played first, followed by the first half of the movie.

I am going to try your method, just wondering if this method will also work with two sided discs. The last part of the first title set from disc 1 uses VOB ID 3 and the first part of the second title set from disc 2 uses VOB ID 3 as well. The chapters for both VOB IDs overlap and create a layer breach. Not sure how to correct this without reencoding, but when I try to reencode, I get checksum errors with the initial encode to the second.

I will let you know how your guide works out for me.

Thanks.

Thanks a lot dude, i don't own a burner yet, but that will be fiexed when sony get's their production up to speed again.

This'll come in handy.

Nice guide ! Thank U!
But I have a problem:
(my english is bad, sorry)
I have successfully put 3 episodes together but my problem is how to change the chapters?
I only want to have a "chapterjump" at the beginning of every episode .so how can I delete the old chapter-marks and can create new ones?

I hope some of you guys will understand me

Thank You!

Vader

First things first, thanks a lot, Slammer for your guide, I really appreciate the offer. However, I seem to be experiencing a similar problem to jollyrodger: I'm following your guide step-by-step but somehow I seem to be stuck in Vobedit.

When I choose 'join clips' I do not get an open dialogue but a 'save file as'-dialogue! Now when I select the first vob in folder 'b' I do get the small dialogue window where I can enter the new vob ID but when I click OK nothing seems to happen.

I do not have any possibility to save the file simply cause any save buttons are greyed out! Are you sure we gotta use 'join clips' and not 'join CellVob files'? Cause the dialogue window in your guide that pops up when processing the files reads 'Joining VOB files' and not 'Joining clips'.

Maybe this is just a mixup? Of course, you could be using another Vobedit than 0.6 or I could be too stupid to follow a step-by-step guide. This last possibility frightens me so if you could shed some light I'd be thankful...

Well what I say is use InstantCopy. It can backup your DVD with full menus and it seems to create more compatible DVD's. DVD's I have done with DVD2One dont play properly in my Samsung Player, yet the same movie done with InstantCopy works fine, and yes I am using the same media. Only problem is that InstantCopy is much slower.
Thats all