My nephew made 2 DVD's of his vacation, the combination of which exceed the limit of DVD5. No problem I said, let me merge the two with DVDRemake Pro, and then I can either transcode with DVD Shrink (or whatever) or just encode with DVD Rebuiler Pro(version 1.28.2). As you all know, DVDRemake Pro can preserve the original menus, and the merge went fine. There were a 43 VTS on the two DVD's and DVDRemake added one more for it's disk selection menu. the problem is that when I feed this merged output to DVDRB Pro, it chokes at VTS44 (the added menu), and the program turns non-responsive, hanging at this point. More precisely, after preparation seems to be complete - it ends at VTS43 and delivers the summary (as noted in the rebuilder log), the program hangs. It does not ever get to VTS44. If I reboot my PC and try to "build" from this point, it starts, but errors out very quickly. I tried going through FixVTS - no help; PCGEdit - no help. I will mention that when PGC reads all the VTS, it takes it a while when it hits VTS44. I should just mention that Shrink, CloneDVD, and DVDFab can transcode this just fine, so I am not in a drop dead situation (except it would be nice to see the quality level of DVDRB) Any hints about why DVDRB can't handle such a thing may be helpful.
What version of DvdReMake did you use to merge? Try merging on 2 different small DVDs and do a prepare and see if it gets stuck on the last VTS. The DvdReMake menu is just a still image, don't see how RB would get stuck on it. I don't have a problem in all 3 phases on the the merged DVD. What encoder did you use to do a prepare?
DVDRemake Pro version 3.6.3 on XP Pro SP3 using HC encoder. I will try a different one and see if that makes any difference. Am I even into using the encoder prior to the build stage?
I use Task Manager to shut down rebuilder as it is non-responsive. Then I restart rebuilder (either before or after rebooting - I can duplicate this error) and start the encoding phase. The rebuilder log looks normal other than the fact that VTS44 is not included. Below is the beginning and end of the DVDRB log as the middle is uninteresting: [10:04:24] Phase I, PREPARATION started. - DVD-RB v1.28.2 - AVISYNTH 2.5.7.0 - HC v0.23.0.0 encoder selected - Source: EXPORT - VTS_01: 28,128 sectors. -- Scanning and writing .D2V & .AVS files -- Processed 2,833 frames. -- Building .AVS and .ECL files - VTS_03: 47,089 sectors. -- Scanning and writing .D2V & .AVS files -- Processed 4,436 frames. -- Building .AVS and .ECL files . . - VTS_42: 70,298 sectors. -- Scanning and writing .D2V & .AVS files -- Processed 3,844 frames. -- Building .AVS and .ECL files - VTS_43: 37,518 sectors. -- Scanning and writing .D2V & .AVS files -- Processed 2,014 frames. -- Building .AVS and .ECL files - Reduction Level for DVD-5: 36.4% - Overall Bitrate : 1,419/1,136Kbs - Space for Video : 941,638KB
Can you play the merged DVD before using RB? Did you try to merge 2 different dvds and do a prepare to see if there's any difference? One thing you would try. In the rebuilder.ini, add these 2 lines under [Options]: vts_min_size=1 vtsm_min_size=1 to see if it helps. You won't see the last VTS in Input Settings tab due to the low file size, but you should see in the log that it is being processed. If this still hangs, probably something's wrong with your setup or the RB version you're using. From your log, the bitrate shown is pretty low, are you sure that the output quality is any good? Maybe it's better not to merge.
OK - I think we are getting closer. Your setting change seemed to work as now the final VTS shows in the logfile: - VTS_44: 5 sectors. -- Scanning and writing .D2V & .AVS files -- Processed 1 frames. I am beginning to wonder however if the only thing I am experiencing is a time related issue - in that I want DVDRB Pro to continue soon after the prep phase is complete. The reason I say this is that right after prep, the hard drive light shows activity, the internal fans start to go faster, but after a while I say enough is enough and try to end DVDRB. It shows non-responive, and I eventually reboot my machine. Now when I go bac to DVDRB and look at Preview/Edit - I see that it only goes up to VTS14, which leads me to believe it just takes a lot of time to process what it needs to. What do you think?
One other thing that I notice is that for each IFO/BUP, ie VTS 1 thru 43, there is only one VOB file, which is always VTS_XX_1.VOB, where XX is the VTS number. However, VTS_44 has two VOB files, _0, and _1, the disk choice screen showing in VTS_44_0.VOB. I found it interesting that the VTS inserted by DVDRemake Pro is the only one with 2 VOB associated with it.
If you want RB to continue right after prepare, then use the 1-click mode. Encoding is HD, CPU, and memory intensive. The fans start spinning to keep the system from overheating, so it's normal. Your PC is probably old. Modern PC won't have this problem. You can lower the Encoder priority to IDLE if you want to work on something. To also speed up the encoding process, have the Work Path and Destination be on different physical drive than the Source. Make sure Steal space from Extras is set to 0%. This may help with the Preview/Edit showing all VTS, but it may not be related at all. Don't worry about the number of VOBs in each VTS. The VTS_44_0.VOB is just the menu VOB and VTS_44_1.VOB is just a blank VOB - not used but must be present.
Hi Toaddub - thanks for all of your help. I am going to try a couple more things. I do have a modern laptop, Dell D830 with a Core2Duo T7800 (2.6 gHz) with 2 gig RAM. Many of your suggestions are already in place - no space stealing, and source / work directories on different physical drives (source is on a Maxtor USB 2 external drive, work is on the drive internal to the laptop, and destination is back on the outboard drive). It is not that I want it to continue right after Prepare - I just do not like seeing it not with only an "Abort" button active 10 minutes after it seems to have finished preparing. But as I am now starting to speculate, it simply takes more than 10 minutes .... so a bit later today I am going to start her up again and leave it alone for a half hour. After that I will try 1 click mode and see if it goes to Build phase on its own. I have a couple of "red" lines in the DVDReMake Pro listing of these DVD's, and I will posting over in the other forum since it now seems operational again ... again thanks for all your help.
The problem is solved - the preparation simply took a VERY LONG time. My latest log shows 20 minutes. This could be because the DVD is simply a slide show with a complex menuing system, a few movie segments, and about 1000 slides total. The original DVD's were prepared with iDVD and iMovie. Patience is what was needed, and I thank you, Toaddub, for yours.
