Ok, I need some help from somebody who actually has experience with this situation. It's a complicated situation, and I have searched around on forums for people who have the same problem. Some people seem to suggest this, and they claim it works, but I need someone who can say for 100% sure this will work before I put any cash into this method. Anyways, here's my problem: I have loads of really rare Japanese metal programs such as Pure Rock, some Headbangers Ball Japan, Mutoma World, Rock City, Tokio Rock TV, Music Tomato Japan, Sony Music TV Japan and more, but I'd say half of the DVD's are VR Mode DVD's. I can't watch them in any of my DVD players, which is really a bummer. However I can watch the .VRO file, which is like a huge uncompressed .VOB file, on my computer only. I know you can take the .VRO file and use all these different programs to turn it into a regular DVD-R, but I really don't want to go through all that crap. I have way too many, somewhere over 100 to 150 DVD's. I know I've got every episode of Pure Rock from 1987 to the very final episode with Bruce Kulick from late 1989. These were all done with a Japanese standalone DVD Recorder, I believe my friend told me they were done with a Toshiba DVD Recorder. Here's my question though, I was told by a couple people (plus the threads I found online as well) that if I were to actually purchase a Toshiba DVD Recorder with a HDD, and copy the VR Mode DVD to a DVD+RW, then copy the DVD+RW to the hard drive of the Toshiba DVD Recorder, it would let me somehow switch the VR Mode DVD to regular a DVD-R with a VIDEO_TS folder and everything. The reason I want to do it this way is so I can keep the original DVD Recorder menu and the original chapters intact. Is this possible? Does anyone here actually have any experience doing this? I've tired to read around on forums, and I noticed a couple people who said this method has worked for them before, but spending cash on a Toshiba DVD Recorder with a HDD (because my current DVD Recorder does not have a HDD, and it also doesn't support VR Mode DVD's) would be a huge step if I didn't know for sure this would work or not. Also, will any DVD Recorder (that supports DVD-VR) work with a HDD? Or does it have to be a Toshiba? The guy who sent me all of this stuff told me that he used a Toshiba DVD Recorder with a HDD, so I just assumed that's what it has to be, but if any DVD Recorder will work, I could probably find a Sony DVD Recorder with a HDD for cheaper. It seems like the Toshiba DVD Recorders are getting harder to find, and it's less likely that I will even find a working one. I personally hate all of these NeroVision/custom computer menus, after years of collecting, I actually prefer the standard DVD Recorder menus for VHS to DVD transfers, so I would rather have the original structure for the DVD left alone, besides changing it from VR Mode to DVD-R. And I know this stuff is priceless, he recorded loads of stuff that only aired on Japanese TV in the 80's and 90's, rare music videos and interviews that we will never see anywhere else. I've been trying to figure all this out, if I could just quickly copy the DVD to the HDD and change it into a regular DVD-R, it would be worth the $250-$400 I spend on another DVD Recorder, but if it's just a waste of money and this method won't work, I won't bother with it. The thing is, I really don't have the time to sit and transfer over 100+ DVD's with Tmpgenc, or whatever program you use to do it, so that is just out of the question for me. Not only that, but as I mentioned above, I really want to save the original DVD Recorder menu, the original chapters, and I don't want to have to re-encode the video either. I want the DVD's to be as untouched as I can get them, while switching them to regular DVD-R format. It's a shame that they weren't already regular DVD-R's, but I really can't complain to my friend, as rare as this stuff apparently is. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
I think you'll find you'll need more specialized help with this at http://forum.videohelp.com/ The only program i can think of that may be able to do a direct copy incl menu's etc to a sd dvd type format is dvdfab (assuming it can read them).Which is all that's needed a program that can rip direct to computer hdd & then burn when finished,tho better if you have dual dvd drives in the comp then you can rip another while burning an already ripped dvd,it's possible to burn on the fly however to avoid errors its best to burn after the files are on the hdd.
I've tried using DVD Fab but it doesn't seem to detect the DVD's at all. I'm uploading one of the smaller (20 minute DVD's recorded in XP Mode, aka. 1-Hour Mode) to Mega as an .ISO file, in hopes that somebody with a DVD Recorder that supports DVD-RAM/VR Mode + has a HDD will download it and see if it will let them switch it over to a regular DVD-R. It would be a lot for me to come out and buy a new DVD Recorder if it didn't work for sure. But if someone else can do this, there's a chance it may work.
Hang on are you saying these movies are on dvd-ram type dvd ,then for dvd fab to read the disc the computer MUST have a dvd-ram readable dvd drive not just a cd/dvd rw type.If you can get the actual vr file onto the computer then dvd fab should be able to convert it.provide link to the iso i'll soon know if fab can convert it
Here's the link: https://mega.co.nz/#!NM43AK4B!NSXfGXFPQJQwF2XXGL5Tb6ANcfoZ2fpQfay7cugFnZ4 This is the same format as all the other discs.
The Good news dvd fab can read it after contents extracted with winrar & then change vro extension to mpg Going to convert it to dvd & see what happens The bad news is there is no menu,it appears in media info as a single file there are no chapters,this to me means the dvd player is most probably reading the breaks between songs ??,yeah even vlc shows no menu or chapter selection.OK this means all the movies you have will require ripping to hdd then editing in a program that can add chapters & a basic menu & join them,however considering the quality i'd just convert them to mkv or whatever with vidcoder & have them as a portable format edit: if you want to continue to copy to dvd a torrent will be required of avs video converter,it can read direct from your vr disc's edit:dvdfab appears to be able to join them & yep it appears to convert to vts,the downside is you can't make a menu edit: there's no way getting round it,your going to need to spend time doing whats required,the above conversion is going to take me 2hrs on a dual core 8gb 2009 dell desktop using fab. To convert to mkv or mp4 it would take 20mins with vidcoder
I don't do .mkv's or .mp4's, I personally don't like compact files. I was hoping that there would be a way to do this with a DVD Recorder, but I'm guessing it's not possible.
vr,mpg,mp4,mkv are all containers inc vts & vob. The conversion of vr to dvd is at 4% after 3hrs.. so much for fabs 2hr eta..lol..it's not worth it to do 150 of em
It seems like a lot of work to do it on the PC, and there is in fact a menu on each of the discs, you just have to have a DVD player or Recorder that can read VR Mode/DVD RAM discs to see them. I found out that TMPGEnc Authoring Works 5 can quickly transfer the DVD's over, but either way I'm going to lose the original menus. I think it actually does save the chapters, but the original menus are gone once I transfer them. If I could only find a menu that looks identical to one of the old standard DVD Recorder menus, I wouldn't mind so much. I've searched high and low looking for something like that, but to me everything looks like some cheap Nero Vision computer menus. I know most people wouldn't care, but it's a perfectionist thing. All of my regular DVD's have the same standard menus, I just didn't want any oddballs.
