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The Original Official Guide by Sefy Levy

More Guides:

AVI to VCD / DVD2SVCD / ImTOO DVD Ripper / EasyDivX / Complete Guide / TMPGEnc / DVDx

Introduction! This Guide will show you how to use VirtualDub as a tool to both add Subtitles to encoders which do not support it, as well as frameserving to encoders which don't support VOB or D2V files. ( * Examples: LSX Encoder / XingMPEG / Panasonic v2.51 * ) NOTE-1: LSX is not a Free Encoder, you CAN replace that step with ANY other encoder you want! NOTE-2: This Guide is mainly a combination of segments taken from the Complete DVD Backup Guide v2.6!

Programs used in this guide: Copying - CladDVD XP FrameServing - VirtualDub Encoding - LSX Encoder and splitting using: TMPGEnc / Plus Chapters - Chapter-X-Tractor Authoring - VCDEasy ( & ASPI Layer for your system! - use the search for "WinASPI" or scrool to the bottom of the page!)

Before we start with the guide, we must make sure the tools we are going to use actually work and setup correctly! Unzip the tools you are going to be working with into the SAME folder, and once you do, make sure all applications work, and then we are ready to begin! For this example i've used "Superman - The Movie Special Edition" (NTSC/154min/DD51@384k) and we will be converting it to a Video-CD NTSC Standard so it  will fit on two 80min CDR media. (or 74min with 2min Overburning, which is only if your CDRW drive and media supports it!), do remember that  740mb filesize will fit into 74min CDR and 800mb Filesize will fit into a 80min CDR (in VCD 1min = 10mb!). NOTE: This current guide support Subtitles using the VobSub filter for VirtualDub, there are many other ways as well, but this is what will be used here, if you want to use other type of subtitles in your movie I suggest you use one of the other great guides on VideoHelp!

This guide will be divided into the following sections: Part 1 - Copying Part 2 - FrameServing Part 3 - Encoding Part 4 - Splitting Part 5 - Chapters Part 6 - Authoring Part 7 - Burning Part 8 - Troubleshooting

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Using - CladDVD XP

This is an update to the CladDVD program and it is capable of not only copying the movie, but also generating frameserving files. (* NOTE: This section of the guide was done with the great help from kwag who has taken the time to do the images for me and explained each step of them *)

Step 1 - Place your DVD movie in your drive ( DVD drive, NOT a CD drive!) and select a Source Drive and also a Target Location where the files will be copied to.

Step 2 - Press the "Options" button, select the pulldown from the "Audio Streams (Re-Map)" to select an Audio Track.

Step 3 - CladDVD XP also supports creating a D2V compatible FrameServing file, to do so, Press on the "FrameServe" button, and here you can set to use the quality of your movie under the "Video Settings" and also if you want to use the "Force Film" to create a NTSC Film 23.976 format for FrameServing.

Step 4 - After you pressed the "OK" button, press " Save Settings" and you'll be back at the main screen, and you can press the "Start" to begin the copying progress.

Step 5 -  If you have selected to use the build-in " FrameServe" option, then when copying is done, it will automaticly invoke the internal DVD2AVI generator, which will open the "Statistics Window ", don't close it, when it's done, you are finished both copying and frameserving your movie.

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VirtualDub - FrameServing

This program is basicly both an editor and a frameserver and has many filters, which one of them i'll cover here, and that is the SubTitles. It makes it possible for an encoder (old or new) to encode the movie from the VOB files with the addition of selected filters, that it would not be capable of doing otherwise.

Pre-Steps - Before you start with "VirtualDub", run the "AuxSetup" and select "Install handler" and press "OK " to confirm, when you are back at the "Auxiliary Setup" press the "Run VirtualDub" button, and this will run the main program. Pre-Step A  Pre-Step B

Step 1 (a/b/c)- Click on "File" then "Open video file" and select your source (Such as the Fake AVI you created using VFAPI Converter) file. The Audio is an OPTIONAL step which only depends on the Encoder you are using, if it only has a single input or it crashes on large WAV files, only then you use this option! If not, skip to Step 2. Click on the "Audio" menu and Instead of the default "AVI audio" select "WAV Audio", this will cause a "Open WAV File" window to popup, here you select the Audio Track created earlier using DVD2AVI, Click on "Open", then under the "Audio" select the "Full processing mode" option. a) b) c)

Step 1d - To add "Filters" such as Subtitles, Click on "Video" and select "Filters" if you want to add the VobSub filter.

Step 1e) - In the Filters menu, click on the "Add..." button.

Step 1f) - In the "Add Filter" selection, if your VobSub is not there, click on the "Load..." button.

Step 1g) - Use the "Load external filter" to locate and open the "textsub.vdf" file.

Step 1h) - After you have loaded the TextSub filter, Click on it, and press the "OK" button NOTE: Click Here to Configure the TextSub Filter for Subtitles in your Movie!

Step 2(a/b) - Click on the "File" menu and then click on "Start frame server..." and when you get the "Frameserver setup" click on "Start" a) b)

Step 2(c/d) - After you clicked on the "Start" button, you will be asked to save the new frameserved file, make sure you add .VDR at the end of the file, as it is NOT being added automaticly. This will make VirtualDub ready to serve, when you are done with encoding, press on the "Stop serving" button.

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Using - LSX Encoder

This Encoder is extremly fast, however it's quality is not one of the best, it is also no longer available as a download or even for buying. It has many nice options but I would more recommand an updated encoder such as TMPGEnc or MainConcept.

Step 1 - Since LSX MPEG Encoder v3.5 only supports one input, i'm using DVD2AVI/VFAPI and VirtualDub for framserving, i've enabled the Video and i've also enabled the "WAV Audio" and selected the WAV file that was generated by DVD2AVI earlier so both the Video and Audio will be frameserved into LSX, and i've created a "fake" AVI file instead of VDR as used in Step 4c on VirtualDub. NOTE: Do NOT use the Install Handler as shown on the Pre-Steps on the VirtualDub section!

Step 2 - When opening the "fake" AVI generated by VirtualDub, LSX will give you the following information.

Step 3 - An "Output File" will automaticly be selected, you can of course change the default name, in the "Stream Format" you can select the type of encoding you want, supported are "Video-CD ", "Super Video-CD" and "DVD", for this example i've used the regular "Video-CD" Standard.

Step 4 - Pressing on the "Advanced" button will give you much more control over how to encode the movie, all menu items are very self-explanatory, so here are just two menus out of them as examples.

Step 5 - When you are done with the "Advanced" menus, press the "OK" button, which will bring you back to the main program, select the "Action" and then the "START Encoding" or press "Alt-R" to start the encoding process.

Step 6 - This is how the encoding window will look like, as you can see, Subtitles exist thanks to VirtualDub (Steps 2a to 2h).

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TMPGEnc - MPEG Tools (v2.5x +)

In the Latest versions of TMPGEnc there has been a new feature added to ease up the usage for Newbie's, it's a Wizard mode, which helps you through each step you take in an easier to use way, here I will guide you through the Wizard Steps.

Step 1a - Open TMPGEnc and press "File" and select "MPEG Tools ".

Step 1b - Now go to the "Merge & Cut" section, and select the type of file you want to create using "Type" category.

Step 2a - Press the "Add" button and choose the file you want to cut, once you selected, Double click the file.

Step 2b - Use the "Slide Bar" to move to the points in your movie that you want to be the start and ending, and use the "{ " to mark the starting point, and use the "}" to mark the end point and then press the "OK" button.

Step 3 - After you have selected the Start and End frame for the first part you want to cut, select the "Output" filename and press "Run" to start the cutting process.

Step 4 - When you are done with the first Part, repeat Step 2a to Step 2b and a diffrent filename for the "Output" so you won't overwrite the previous file, and then press the "Run" button to start the cutting process for the second part of the movie.

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Using - Chapter-X-Tractor

This program is capable of accessing the DVD Movie's IFO file and extracting the Chapters Information so it will be used in to create a VCD/SVCD with the same Chapter Points, so when you use the Remote Control you can jump from chapter to chapter.

Step 1a - Load Chapter-X-Tractor (1a) and press the " Open IFO" button.

Step 1b - Select the Movie IFO file which you ripped earlier.

Step 2a - You will now see all the information needed in the " RAW Data" field.

Step 2b - Now Press the "Save data" button, and select a filename for the Chapter Information.

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Using - VCDEasy

A New program that is capable of doing chapters in a rather easy and simple way, and uses all the free tools out there for giving you the best of the best, it's chaptering capabilities are far simple but effective in the last few builds it has added support for the free CDRDao burning tool, and gives you an easy interface for burning the images it created.

Step 1a - Open VCDEasy, and set everything according to your specific movie, and follow the example below. ( * NOTE: Please do not create blank spaces in the Cue/Bin name, as CDRDao may have a problem burning it later on.*)

Step 1b - Press the "Add Files" button and select the first of the two files you encoded earlier.

Step 1c - Change the "Volume Label" to reflect the name of the Movie, and also select the "Bin Output File" location.

Step 2 - On the "Options" tab you can write down the name of the "Album" and also enable the "Use Playback Control (PBC)".

Step 3a - Press the "Chapters" menu item and Here you can select to import the Chapters for your movie, Right Click to get the popup menu so you can import from Smart Ripper or Chapter-X-Tractor.

Step 3b - Select the "Start offset" and "End offset " for the first part of the movie and press the "Ok" button.

Step 4 - Press the "Go" button, VCDEasy will begin analysing your MPG file and create an Image file for burning.

Step 5a - Go back to "Main" by pressing the "(S)VCD " button, remove the MPG file, and open the second part of the movie.

Step 5b - Change the name of the "Bin Output File", so you don't accidently overwrite the previous file (if you didn't burn it yet).

Step 5c - As in Step 3a and 3b, select the Chapters for the second part of the movie, make sure to start a Chapter after the one you last selected on the previous part (3b), and when you are done press the "Ok" button.

Step 6 - Press the "Go" button again to create the second image file of the movie.

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Using - VCDEasy / CDRDao

VCDEasy comes with CDRDao which enables it to burn Bin/Cue images, this way, you do not require any additional software to burn your images.

Step 1 - To burn the newely created images, first make sure that the CDRDo is set up correctly, go to the "Settings " and select the "CDRDAO" menu item, make sure you select your " CD Writer" and set the speed, and also enable the "Allow Overburn " if you plan on using over 80min CDR media.

Step 2 - Next, go to the "Tools" section and select "CDRDao Tools" from the above menu, here you can "Blank a CDRW " and also select to "Burn a CUE or TOC CD Image" file, you can also select to "Simulate" and not actually burn.  Press the " CUE/TOC file" button, and then select the Image you want to burn.

Step 3a - After you selected the first image of the movie (in this case Superman - VCD1.cue) then press the "Burn" button and the writing of the CD will start.

Step 3b - When you are done burning the first part select the second image of the movie (in this case Superman - VCD2.cue) and again press the "Burn" button and the writing of the CD will start.

THE END

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Troubleshooting

Here I will try to cover all the problems you may encounter, and hopefully help you fix them.

In Order for TMPGEnc to recognise D2V files, you MUST have the VFAPI and the DVD2AVI.VFP file located where the TMPGEnc.EXE file is! it will NOT work any other way! It is also sometimes helps to use the Forced Film option in DVD2AVI, but only if you are still unable to open the D2V files with TMPGEnc. (suggsted by msfox) In some DVD movies the Audio Track is located on the second track, so you might want to try in DVD2AVI to rip the secondary Audio Track, if you are not sure which Audio Track to choose, open the Chapter-X-Tractor text file and you can check in there. Also in some movies the Audio Track is a DTS and DVD2AVI is incapable of handling it and converting it to WAV, I would recommand you find a diffrent track, there is usually both DTS and AC3 tracks, use the information files by either Smart Ripper or Chapter-X-Tractor to find out if your movie has an AC3 track and if does, then on which track it is, and if there isn't find the next best alternative which would be the 2ch track. Make sure when you encode the movie that the currect Template will be used for your movie, an incorrect Template will cause A/V sync! and not to mention the resolution will be distorted (if you use PAL on NTSC and NTSC on PAL). If you are having problems copying the Movie VOB files to your HDD, I suggest you check your ASPI Layer, the ASPI that comes with Windows9x, Millenium are not good for ripping, update them, and Windows2000/XP does not come with an ASPI Layer at all! make sure you download the latest ASPI for your system, you can get the v4.6 for 98/Me/2000XP here! (scrool to the bottom of the page!) If Smart Ripper or any other of the DVD Copying programs are unable to access your DVD Movie, try to first play the disc using any Software DVD Player, and then try to run the ripper. Because the Copying program always selects as default the longest running title of the DVD, it might select the wrong title, So make sure the VOB's that were copied are indeed the VOB that belong to the movie itself and not the Extra features (e.g. Pearl Harbor).

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Copyright 2000-2004 by Sefy Levy, All Rights Reserved.

Best Regards, Sefy Levy, Certified Computer Technician.