Hello. I am trying to make backups of my first season of the Simpsons. THe originals consist of 3 disks and like most movies they are well over 4.3 GB. I was going to make a backup with DVD Shrink, but I was wondering if there was a way to copy these 3 dvds onto multiple DVDRs so that I don't have to do any compression? I think disk 1 had 6 episodes on it, and I was wondering if I could only copy 4 or 5 episodes onto my first DVD R, and then put episode 6 of disk 1 along with a couple episodes from disk 2 onto my second dvd r, etc. so that I don't have to do any compression? If there is a guide out there for this can someone point it to me? THanks a lot.
DVD shrink sucks. I used to use it as a N00B but found that it is much easier to rip burn using DVD Decryptor to rip, then to burn with Clone DVD. You can pick and choose your tracks to burn and preview much easier than with shrink.
are you telling me that i can split 1 dvd9 onto 2 dvd5s using clone dvd? can you explain to me how to do it? i could use the help. thanks
You can specify which VOB files that you are wanting to use. I use DVD shrink (which I think is pretty good by the way). If you use that, you get the option to cut out whatever vobs that you want. Just preview each one and pick out the episodes that you want on one disk. Then repeat for the others. As for ripping some off of one and putting some of another, I do not think that DVD shrink can help you there. In that case, you can use DVD Decrypter or even DVD Santa to rip down the files into MPEGs and then convert groups of mpegs into DVD format. That would get a little more compilcated, but I know that you can do it.
Ok I'm not sure I understand your method. I used DVD decrypter to rip the entire Simpsons first DVD to my hard drive. So all the files from that disc are on my hard drive (they're a bunch of BUP, VOB and IFO files). Obviously the episodes are the files that are 1GB each (these are 7 VOB files). Are you saying that I can just drag and drop any of those 7 VOB files to a DVD 5 and then pop that in my dvd player and have the movies play? That doesn't sound right to me...can you give me more details?
Showan, There are two different options to go with here... Options #1 - I was saying that there are two steps to this process. First, you need to rip down the files to the Basic DVD format (where the folder has VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS). In this form, you should have all sorts of different vob files which will be episodes, commericals, etc. You can use a authoriing program to open that VIDEO_TS file and choose which vob that you want to use. (If you use DVD Shrink, it does the the first step by reading the DVD, then allows you to choose what you want to keep or throw away). If you do it this way, you can choose to only keep epidose 1-3 out of the six (for instance). Then, if you want, you can go back and do the same for the other ones. Option #2 - If you want to save DVD's, and not have to spilt those DVD 9's onto two smaller DVD's then you can rip the DVD into smaller MPEG files, using DVD Decrypter or DVD Santa. Then you can group the MPEG's into whatever way that you want, like episode 1-4 of disc 1, then episode 5-6 of disc 1 and 1-2 of disc 2. The saves you some space and also, the ripped files should be considerably smaller. A 30 minute epsidoe should only be about 1/3 of a Gig rather than a full one and keep its quality. Finally, once you have your mpeg's, use DVD Santa or something simliar to reconvert them to DVD Format and burn away with either the Santa or some other program that is more menu friendly. There might be an option three as well... I have never done this myself (I have tired and completed the other options by the way), but you may be able to simply drag the VOB files of coorsponding episodes into one folder, then make DVD Santa (or some other) build a DVD out of that. These programs are made to create a new ifo file and will probably make them work together. I have never tried this, but I think it may work. I am sorry if I am throwing too many options out at you, but somethings work better for some other people. One would think that there is a WAY that everyone does it, but you just have to find what works for you. Good Luck.
The first option that you mentioned there sounds like the most straightforward and originally I was considering doing it that way. My concern though is that lets say I copied the first dvd and only selected episodes 1-3. Now I convert it back to DVD and go to play it in my player. What happens with the menus and everything? Wont they still give me the options to view all 6 episodes (not just the first 3 that I copied)? Because in this example I'm just copying the menus as is. I'm not telling it that only episodes 1-3 are on this dvd. So it should still give me the option to choose any of the 6 episodes, but obviously if I try to select an episode other than 1-3 it won't work. Is this what happens? So to summarize I would essentially have to copy the original DVD1 2 times, but each time select half of the episodes. And the final result....on my copies the menus will still allow me to choose all episodes, but will only work if I choose an episode on that particular disk. DOes that make any sense???
I was a bit curious on this myself. I'ts not such a big deal having the same menu on both dvds each accessing only half the episode options. Example: If I were to copy a six episode disc to two blank dvds I would have on disc 1 episodes 1 to 3 although the main menu would still give me the options to select episodes 4 to 6 which in this case wouldn't link to those episodes. I could use the STILL PICTURES feature in shrink for in the event episodes 4 to 6 were selected. I would much rather disable (for lack of better terms) the links from the menu to those missing episodes. In other words If I were to select an episodes from 4 to 6 on this menu simply put nothing would happen. Not sure on how to do this and I still consider myself a beginner but I would think that I could accomplish this with IFO edit(plus a how to giude).
I am not sure what you are getting at here... 1. Are you trying to alter the original menu by removing the "links" in the menu options out of what is already there? 2. Are you wanting to create a new menu that only offers what you are looking for? For simplicity's sake, I would probably grit my teeth and bear with the extra options, if I did not want to fool with creating my own menus and if I was trying to go the "one step method." This seems to be the way that you are going. If I was not satisfied with the extra options, I would simply go with the option 2 the I discussed earlier. This was is completely controllable and you can make your own menus however you want. This way would take some more homework on your part, which I would be glad to give you a step by step if you need (although I think that there are plenty of guides that do the same thing and probably will do a better job of it) There might be somehting to the suggestion by Pony321 about using IFO EDIT, but I do not have much experience with that program. I do think however, that you would probably not be able to simply alter the first menu, but you may be able to "slip in" a different menu. I am not sure about this. Finally, I do have one question for you. I know that you stated that you wanted to avoid compression. However, some compression can do wonders for your DVD. You may not have multiangle support or you might not be able to distinguish individual nose hairs on homer's face, but you can still get pretty great quaility (especially on cartoons). I have recently downloaded some discontinued cartoons and backed them up for archival purposes. The cartoons were around 30 minutes each and I could fit 15 on one DVD and I was able to maintain some great quailty. It is totally your choice, but this might be something to think about as well... Later, Tater...
