Oh here you are! Well I answered the other post you made, I was replyin' while you were editin". I guess I'll just edit too and bring my answer to this location.
The problem I always have is trying to load the vobs. It seems like there is always one VOB that the program will not take. I haven't figured that out yet. Nero support wasn't much help either.
I did manage to make some nice menus using DVD Lab, quite time consuming and a definite learning curve to deal with, its also a pain to get the vobs in. You have to join them or you will have a movie for each VOB. DVD Lab Pro beta works better for this. I've got 5 days left before I have to buy it.
I've got some other programs that make menus, TMPGEnc DVD Author can do it but I just don't like this program. I always have bitrate problems and it only takes 2 channel audio.
Im trying to see what else I have.. Ok Ulead DVD movie factory let me add a VIDEO_TS folder and now is compiling it. I selected the folder and Movie Factory broke it down into a bunch of scenes. I selected all of them and then hit add. Ok, once it finished I had a bunch of chapters totaling 4.9 GB so I must have duplicated a few. But it added a menu before I deleted the mess.
I'd use DVD Lab Pro if I actually wanted to do this. I never like the menu templates these other programs have and it's a lot easier to link your menu buttons to the item you want to link to. I'll find the link so you can look at it...
TMPGEnc author program does support dolby 5.1.(AC3).
You just need to download a plugin for it. I use TMPGEnc all the time and its great.
You are right about the bitrate problems but i only get that when i chop off some of the beginning or ending of a film (trimming they call it) in other software programs. To solve this, i chop the beginning and end using TMPGEnc author instead and problem solved.
That applies to encoding. Yes it only encodes and re-encodes in 2 channel only.
But when i pull movies off of dvds with DVD Decrypter (by demuxing to create a seperate AC3 file), i can enter them into TMPGEnc, create menus, and when i play them in my dvd player, i do get 5.1 sound.
I know this because you can check on your dvd player to see what sound you are getting.
My apologies but the demuxing was for something else and not this dvd 5.1 procedure
What i do is this::
Use DVD Decrypter to copy full dvd to harddrive in file mode.
Use DVD Shrink to pull off what movie or episode i want to reauthor to another dvd. Do whatever compression or trimming is needed.
Now when you start TMPGEnc author program and you want to add your movies, select your VOB file(s) (the ones created with DVD Shrink) to use as the movies. These files must not be split as some programs split up VOB files. DVD Shrink fortunately doesn't do this. You will need to change the Open box to "All Files" to select the vobs or you wont see them in your Open dialog box. The vobs will load and when you look at the sound you will see 2 channel checkmarked. Just hit ok.
The important thing is to not do any altering of the video in TMPGEnc or it will not work. What i mean is no trimming etc. Do this before using TMPGEnc.
Create your menus, create the dvd, burn and wala, you will get the original 5 channel sound just like the original dvd had.
When i tested this, i use my dvd players "display" option which shows me information about the inserted dvd while it's playing, like video mode etc. All dvd players have this option. I select "sound" at it tells me exactly what type of sound is coming through. I see 5 speakers pictured here and a subwoofer. It says 3/2.1 which is 5.1 sound.
1.4 Mhz AMD, 512 Mb RAM, 120 Gb HD,WinFast 2000 XP Expert Video Card, DVD X-Copy Platinum, TMPGEnc Plus, TMPGEnc DVD Author, DVD decrypter, DVD2One130, Cucusoft AVI to DVD,
