JD thank for the advice. I was over thinking it all.

Grazie

Whenever you are faced with a library of DVD/ or other optical disc consolidation and assorted indexing issues, it is always handy to use an app that will create indexing first and pull your index to a database structure like you might use in anything else like Excel or even SQL. If you want help with that, I can make a recommend.

I've got at least 20 DVD-RWs that I've used as tests and Projects that I wish to sweep-up and make at least 1 or maybe 2 DVDs. Some run to 3 minutes others only 30 seconds.I am not sure what end product you are trying to create. I'll provide multiple answers, once for each possibility.

1. If you simply want to archive the files, just copy each DVD-RW to a separate folder and then burn these folders to a data DVD. This will consolidate the results, and you can import the VOB files from any folder into Vegas, just like you would import any DVD from the disc itself.

2. If you want to actually author a DVD that is the sum total of all the DVDs then, as in #1, copy each DVD-RW to a separate folder, but this time do this using DVD Decrypter in the File mode, with its preferences set to create once single VOB file. The reason for using DVD Decrypter is that, when set to the "no split" option in the File mode, it will consolidate multiple VOB files into a single VOB file. Once you have all these single VOB files in multiple folders, you simply drop those into DVD Architect and create buttons and end action links between them in order to create a standard multi-title DVD.

3. If you want the ultimate in flexibility, follow the steps in #2, but once you have the multiple VOB files, put them into a good MPEG-2 joiner like one of the Womble products or VideoRedo. I have both of these and I prefer the Womble products because it has never produced an MPEG-2 file that wasn't 100% compatible with other programs, most notably DVD Architect. Once you have this single MPEG-2 file, you can drop it into DVD Architect and make a single title DVD.

JM: I am not sure what end product you are trying to create.

Neither had I, until you asked those 3 Qs. I just saw the need for making a Seasonal Clean-up.

VITG & JM, thank you.

For starters I'm kinda landing on #1 as the simplest of option. I could then name the Folder with the overall name of the Project.

But with JM's ideas I'm kinda seeing a value in this too. Being able to re-author through DVDA, I like! That'll be that #2 .

I'd like to string together any combination of already existing DVDs created through DVDA projects, presently residing on these RWs, with Menu structures I could re-design.

I've never ever Wombled!

Hmm.....

Grazie

#2 and #3 get you to roughly the same place, but if an authored DVD is your goal, then #2 is much, much faster. Using this workflow, you just copy each DVD to your hard drive, drop the resulting single VOB from each DVD into DVD Architect, and you are done. Heck, if you drop the VOBs directly into the DVD Architect preview windows, the buttons are automatically created.

If you are only trying to consolidate 5-10 discs, you can then just arrange the buttons on the screen, burn the DVD, and you're done. If you want one DVD to automatically play after another one is finished playing, you will have to spend a minute setting end actions for each VOB so that it points to the next VOB, but that's about it.

So, if the goal is to create a single DVD that can actually be played on a DVD player, #2 gets you there with virtually no work.

Here are the settings you need to use in DVD Decrypter:



and

JM? Is it this the one DVD Decrypter?

G

--> JM? Is it this the one DVD Decrypter? Yes.

Note that the last update was in 2005, but that's OK because the DVD spec is still the same now as it was then. Decss decryption has evolved a little since 2005, and DVD Decrypter can no longer decrypt many DVDs, but that's OK because you are using it to deal with your own DVDs, and these are not decrypted.

Just to review, the only reason for using DVD Decrypter for this project is that it combines VOB files together during the copy operation. Combining VOB files is actually a little bit tricky, as people have found when they have simply copied multiple VOB files to the Vegas timeline, and then discovered video and audio gaps at the point between VOB files from the same DVD titleset.

Other tools for combining VOB files are VOB2MPG and tsMuxer.