Mulitiple DVDs on one DVD+R?

Since the holidays are coming up shortly I want to put all my Charlie Brown dvds onto one DVD+R...well and other super short holiday cartoons! But I have no idea how to do this, or if it is as complicated as I am imagining it to be!
I have Nero, DVD Decrypter and DVD Shrink all installed on my pc. I make back ups everyday with DVD Shrink and am pretty familiar with the basics of using it for just straight burning, just not with anything else.
Any help at all would be greatly appriciated
Many thanx,
Jessica

 

I guess I should also state that I would like to have a menu option so I can decide on which I would like to view. I read the tutorial in the GUIDES section of this site on how to burn multiples using DVD Shrik and Nero but I would lose the menu option and if at all possible I would like to have that.
~Jessica

 

DVD Remake (not free ~$50 - $100 must have fill version to work) can also do this. It has an option to merge 2 DVDs in the tools menu. This will create a disc selection menu automatically and keep your original menus. If you are doing more than 2 DVDs to 1 DVD5, this may not work though, but I have never tried the auto merge feature.

If you want to use a program like DVDlab pro or Nero Vision Express you can. Nero Vision Express is the easier of the two, but if you do not have it, I do not know the limits of the Demo.

If Nero Vision Express is not fully featured and you feel like making a semi-pro DVD read on. If it seems too hard, it is not. It is much, much harder to write the process than actually doing it. I would also like to apologize for the long length. I kept it as short as I could while still keeping as much info as possible, but this is not a general guide and was written specifically for your case.

DVDlab pro is fully featured for 30 days and is rather easy to use. You will have to manually create your menus and add audio and subtitles though. Creating menus are pretty easy if you want them simple. If you want super flashy menus (or use the original menus), this is also simple, but will take longer. You could also just download jpegs and use those as menu backgrounds, but that involves a few steps and programs like Photoshop or DVD Menu Studio. If you want to keep the original menus, even in Shrink reauthor mode, let me know and I can tell you how.

In order to use DVDlab pro, you will need to use DVD Decrypter in IFO mode (file mode will also work, but I have had problems with Demuxing in file mode). Once you go into IFO mode, DVDD will auto select the main movie. First thing to do is right click this file and select "create information file". This will be your chapter info to import into DVDlab. Make sure to select the DVDlab output from the drop menu then click ok. If will save a file named: "VTS_0x_PGC_0x - Chapter Information - DVDLab.txt".

After that, click on the "stream processing" tab. Check the "enable stream processing" box. Now right click on one of the files listed and select "file splitting=>none". Right click again and select "select all - demux". Now click on Decrypt. This will automatically split your movie into a video file (.M2V), audio files (.ac3), and subtitle files (.sub). If you want to keep all the special features (extra footage, etc...), do the same for all the other PGCs.

Next comes DVDlab. If you want to have 1 main menu and a scene selection to pick between movies, you will use normal mode. If you want a Main menu (title) to select from each movie, then a sub menu (root) for each movie, then choose advanced. I recommend advanced mode because in Normal mode you will manually have to create all menus and that will take time.

Begin by importing all of your media files. Right click on the White part of your screen (bottom left) and select "import media assets". Select all of your files and click open or press enter.

First create your VMG menu. Double click VMGmenu1. A black screen will pop up (this is your blank menu). You will see tabs on the bottom left of your screen. Select backgrounds and drag and drop a background to the black screen. Next select the text tool (the Aa button to the left of the menu). Write text like, "choose movie". Then add more text like "Charlie Brown Christmas" then "Charlie Brown Thanksgiving", or whatever your movies are called. Make this text smaller than the "Select movie" text so that it will be easy to tell that these will be buttons. Take note of the dashed line squares. Keep ALL of your text inside the innermost dashed square. After you finish this, save your project (and save often).

Now you will make your first movie in VTS1. Double click movie1. Drag and drop the .m2v of the first movie. Then drag and drop the audio tracks. If you only want English, do not add the Spanish and also remove it from the media asset manager. You will see a pink bar with "chapters" on top of your movie thumbnails. This will show chapters marked by little diamonds. Right click (doesn't have to be on the pink bar) then select "chapters=>import". This will auto set the chapters so that they are the same as the original DVD. If they do not import for some reason, or they are wrong, you can add your own by dragging the slider (click somewhere on the thumbnail part to move it to where you can slide it). Once you get to a point where you want a chapter break, click on the "+" on top of the slider.

If you want subtitles, click "sub1" the (blue box). This will open a screen and you will then click "import". Select your .sub file and click Generate. If there are any errors, forget about subtitles as it takes too long to extract and bring back into dvdlab.

Now that you have your chapters, select "menu=>scene selectionn menu=>thumbnail scene selection". Make sure it is for the current VTS and movie. Select the style and click ok. You will get new menus named "scenes x for movie 1". You may have multiple menus. First, delete "menu1". You will not use this menu. Your Root menu will be "scenes 1 for movie 1". Double click it. In the button that pointed to "menu1" (it will now say NOP), right click it and link it to "VMGmenu1". Do the same for the rest of the scenes menus in VTS1.

If you want a subtitle and audio menu, create a new menu and name it setup or subs audio, whatever. Drag a background like you did for the VMGmenu and add text. First write subtitles then have "on" and "off" or "En", "Es", "Fr", etc... and "off" Link them to the appropriate sub by right clicking and selecting the sub stream.

Now add the audio text. Do the same except you will not have an "off" button. Point this menu to "Scenes1 for Movie1" and make sure to create a text or button link in that menu that points to the audio/subs menu.

If you want to add bonus footage or something, add a new movie to the VTS for each bonus feature and then drag and drop the media files like what you did to the the main movies. Also create a new menu called "extras". Add button links (text is easiest) and point to the respective extra features. Then make a link to Scenes1 menu and a link from Scenes1 to Extras menu.

Now do the same for the other movies, only add movie 2 to VTS2 and movie3 to VTS3, etc...

You can also rename movie1 to something else for convenience, but that is optional.

Now go to VMGmenu1 and link the text you created to the appropriate VTS Root Menu. Dont forget to save whenever you do something important. After everything is finished and saved, compile your DVD "project=>compile". Do not worry about the file size too much, but try to keep it under 9 gigs so that your quality will be ok when you compress with Shrink.

summary:

create chapter list (10 seconds per movie)
decrypt movies into separate a/v streams (approx 25 minutes per movie)
Import media into DVDlab pro (10 seconds)
Create VTS structures (about 20 minutes)
Create menus (about 10 minutes)
Create button links (about 5 minutes)
Compile movie (PC speed related but fast)
Test compiled movie w/IFOEdit - free (5 - 10 minutes)
DVD Shrink movie (you know the drill here)
Burn Movie (about 15 minutes)

Once you do a few menus, it will be easy and fast. Do not forget to test your DVD using something like IFOEdit' DVD play function. Lauch IFOEdit. Click open and select VIDEO_TS.ifo. Then click DVDplay and go through all the menu button navigation and all of the chapter skips etc... If it works here it will work on a DVD player unless if you use horrible DVDR discs.

When shrinking the movie, do not forget to add your DVD label (what gets shown when you insert the disc in a player or PC drive).