I have a movie in a 2 disk set that I wanted to backup to a DVD-9. I ripped both disks with DVD Shrink and then loaded the .ISO files into virtual drives using DAEMON Tools. I took the Main Movie titles out of each virtual drive using the DVD Shrink ReAuthor function then encoded a merged .ISO file with DVD Shrink. I burned the merged .ISO to a DVD+R DL with DVD Decrypter like I wanted. When I play the disk it shows two titles as expected. Title 1 has 33 chapters and title 2 has 20 chapters. It will play title 1 through chapter 33 then when it skips to title 2 it starts at chapter 1 and skips blank chapters until it encounters title 2 chapter 34. The disk skips about a chapter per second on my home DVD player and the .ISO file on a virtual drive skips the blank chapters much faster with PowerDVD. It then proceeds to play chapter 34 through chapter 53 with no problem. In the PowerDVD structure, title 2 shows that it has chapter 1 through 53, it's just that title 2 chapter 1 through 33 are blank. Any idea as to how I could have goofed this up?

I've done this before... but in a time crunch and gotta run... I can give you a brief idea on what I did... I did not create ISO, but dumped the two discs to different folders... then jumped around at loading the titles in Shrink... Hope it makes sense... can't go to much into detail... gotta run... will try to help later if you need it.

(in reply to harper)

Thanks for the response. I'm afraid that's not very clear to me. Did you encode the final .ISO from .VOB files?

I have merged titles before using DVD Shrink with a two-sided disk. I did the same thing. I made an .ISO from each side, loaded the two titles into DVD Shrink using Reauthor, encoded the merged .ISO and burned using DVD Decrypter. That time there was none of this blank chapter business in title 2. The differences were that it was a two-sided disk and I burned the merged .ISO to DVD5.

(in reply to SithTracy)

Are you using a recent release of SlySoft AnyDVD or DVDFab to decode your discs?  Using Shrink or DVD Decrypter is not going to handle recent changes in copy protection...  If not, download DVDFab HD Decrypter for free and decode/rip your discs with that prior to using Shrink.

(in reply to harper)

Thanks again for the response. I just used DVD Shrink to decode. I didn't run into any obvious copy protection. I didn't expect to with a 1999 movie, even a two disk set. Both disks were ripped with no difficulty. Each of the two .ISO files produced when separately encoded were fine. I only ran into the problem of extra blank chapters when I merged the .ISO files.

The two-sided disk that worked for me using this technique was from a 1991 movie.

(in reply to SithTracy)

Ok... a breather... finally... What I do is extract my DVD's to Files (specifically Episodic files/TV Series on DVD... take a couple of my favs off different discs and put them in one)... I  extract the discs to separate folders on my hard drive... I start with the first folder and select "Open Files"... Go to Re-author and drag the episode I want on the disc... I then go to "Open Files" on the second folder and repeat... I then have separate data from each disc that I Shrink to a new folder... I use ImgBurn to convert the new folder to an image after I check it out on the hard drive... Hope that is a better explanation!

(in reply to harper)

Yes, that's much clearer, thanks. I take it you're using DVDFab Decrypter to rip? I have used it a couple of times but I don't remember the file types it produces in the folders that you set up.

I was really looking for the reason that the extra blank chapters might have appeared. I just looked at the .ISO from disk 2 using DAEMON Tools and PowerDVD and I found that there are in fact 53 chapters listed, the first 33 of which are blank PowerDVD just zips through the blank chapters showing a blank screen for about 20 seconds. Odd behavior, that.

In the other merge I discussed, a two-sided disk, each .ISO file had its own independent chapter structure. The second side started with title 2 chapter 1 just as I expected. There were none of these blank chapters (the same number as in title 1) to skip over.

Thanks again for taking time to respond. If you see no solution to my problem it's no big deal. The backup still works and is more convenient than the original.

(in reply to harper)

I use DVDFab Platinum and SlySoft AnyDVD to rip... But the DVDFab freebie is pretty good... I think it only dump the contents of the full DVD to the hard drive... of course, once you get it there you've got Shrink... I think using FAB with Shrink in my method would do a good job, but you can always check around @ VideoHelp.com too.... or perhaps PgcEdit.

(in reply to harper)

Thanks heaps for all of your trouble.

(in reply to harper)