Hello all, I have searched for a few days before getting the nerve to ask this question on a forum. I have been directed here for many guides and how-to's in the past and thought it would be the right place to ask. Here is the situation. A while back i decided to start ripping my dvds to hard drive with dvd shrink to back them up. Obviously that that was a stupid idea and has taken tons of space (4.35gb per dvd). Now i would like to rectify this problem by compressing them to avi. The only problem i have found is that no matter what program i use (autogk, winavi, dvd2avi, #1 dvd ripper, etc.) it only outputs the movie. I would like the menu functionality as well. So thats the question: Can i compress the ifo/vobs to an avi format that retains the interactive menu features and ability to flip thru chapters? Thank you in advance for your assistance, Ryan H
I guess the short answer is 'no'. It's the video (vob files) that are converted to the new format. The files containing the information are not video files and the information is lost. I have seen some menu creation projects for DivX files, but have never tried it. http://labs.divx.com/MenuBuilder
Thats what i have been seeing as well. There are many fancy programs out there to do almost anything. I figured it would be worth a shot. I have seen a few things mentioning ratDVD and i am in the process of encoding a DVD from folders as i write this. If it works i will go from there. If it doesnt i guess i will just try telling dvd shrink to compress my DVD's to around 2gb (that'd save me 1/2 the space). But at what quality costs??? I would be running this from my pc to a 32" Sharp Aquos LCD. if it looks good, great. If not then I may be SOL on this venture i guess. Thanks for the help attar. If anyone else has any other ideas or suggestions, feel free to post them. I am open to trying other avenues. /ryan
hmmm i spose you could go from dvd (main movie only) to avi useing AutoGK (say output size is 700meg for each) then load say 5 avi to convertxtodvd which will convert back to dvd but put a basic menu link to each of the 5... (note - a quailty loss is imminent for sure) as i type im in the process of doing just this, not fully what you need i already got 5 files of 700meg and useing convertxtodvd to make to dvd files... (im on test for another user/thread on here)
You will lost the dvd menus if you rip the dvds into avi format, cus, dvd menu information is written as a series of ifo and bup files. if you need to bak up the dvd along with the menu, you'd better back up it as a new dvd.
I am probably wrong here because you would need video files to use the ifo and bup files. but... is there not a way of finding out the files you need??? copy all of the bup and ifo files (as they are under 100kb each) then... copy all the smaller vob files (thinking these are the menu items video) when converting back to dvd try and use a program to join the two dvd sources. I have not tried or even looked to see if you can, i seen this post and i had an idea lol. i will have a wee look about but if anyone else wants to try, then get back and let us know how its going, or if you can do it would be great.
You can create a .divx container, and have menus, chapters... http://labs.divx.com/MenuBuilder http://userxp.tripod.com/
