[Help - How To?] Extract DVD to file AND screen w/ menus ?

[keithbcg]

[VLC 0.6.2 running on Mac OS 10.2.8 Jaguar]

I'm trying to extract a section of a DVD to a file, but need to navigate the on-screen DVD menus to do so.
Is this even possible?
Can anyone give me the command line syntax that *should* work?

I've spent several hours trying to get this working, both using command-line arguments and using the advanced options dialog within VLC with almost no success. Mostly, VLC does nothing or freezes up (spinning beachball of death)

(In case it matters, I'm running VLC from the Terminal by cd'ing into the VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/ and running ./VLC -vvv ...)

Things that DO work:
* I can play the DVD interactively in VLC and navigate to & view the sequence I want.
* I can get VLC to convert the opening sequence of the DVD to a file, but with no on-screen video display and no ability to navigate the DVD.

Either I don't under the syntax & stream model correctly, or there's something wrong with VLC, or both.

So how would *you* play a DVD interactively while sending the resulting video to a file?

Thanks for any help!
Keith

[Gibalou]

You can't do what you want.

DVD navigation is done with the help of some metadata (the .ifo files on the DVD) and they are not streameable. Streaming like you did will just end up with a non interactive video and the menu sequences won't even be visible because they are composed of "still" frames which will not be preserved as stills in the output file.

To summarize, this is not a problem with VLC but with the way DVDs are authored.

[keithbcg]

Hmmm - I guess I wasn't clear about what I'm trying to do.

I don't care about streaming the interactive menus, I just need to click on them to get to the correct bit of footage on the DVD.

So if my output doesn't have interactive menus (and how could it?!) that's OK, as long as it contains whatever happened on the screen.

So to summarize what I'm trying to do:
"How can I get VLC to play a DVD normally (letting me navigate with the interactive menus) while sending everything on the screen into a file at the same time?"

(Exact syntax appreciated, since I've already tried a bunch of things (command line and GUI options) that seem like they should have worked, without success...)

Thanks!
Keith

[The DJ]

Instead of using the menu, use the title and chapter options to navigate to the part of the DVD directly. You can set them in the open disc item.
Deselect the Use DVD menus option as well.

[keithbcg]

Wow - so there's really no way in VLC of sending the video displayed in the window to a file?!

I've already sort of tried getting the footage by converting individual title/chapters, but have been unable to find the correct one...
I'll try to write a simple script to convert all the files (~96 total) using VLC from the command line, just in case I missed it somehow.

But being able to interactively play the DVD and send the screen output to a file would sure be easier!

A related question - Is it possible for there to be footage hidden on a DVD somehow, so that it doesn't appear as a file?

Thanks for the advise though!

Keith

[The DJ]

the proces is not Video -> Screen -> File
It is

Video -> Screen
\_> File

A parallel proces and not serial. therefore the result on screen CAN vary from those in the file.

There cannot be hidden portions on a dvd... when you navigate via the DVDmenu to the part you want you can use the title and chapter menú's to tell you the numbers you need to set in the open dialog.

As explained before interactively playing the DVD AND outputting to file is technically impossible.

[keithbcg]

OK - thanks for all the help! I'll see what I can figure out.
(Unfortunately, the interactive menus don't reveal anything about the title/chapter number on this DVD of 'supplemental/making-of' material)

Thanks for making such a great program !

Keith