This guide is by no means perfect, I have been backing up my DVD's for only a month, I started with just using DVD2ONE, which in my opinion is a fantastic and easy to use programme, and backs up the entire disc, with menus and extras. I wanted a way to back up to one disc 2 movies, just the movie, no extras and no frills, finding any straightforward answers to my questions has been a nightmare, so I thought I would present my own method.

Just a word of warning tho' this procedure does not entail precise bitrate calculations or audio calculations so that you can get both movies down to the very last byte on the disc, if you want to be that perfect then don't read on, the backups I have made play perfectly adequate for my needs on a Thompson "Black DIva" 28" wide screen TV, and the discs played either on my Playstation 2 or a Proline/Scott DVD player that only costs £50.00 from Currys (It also plays MP3,Jpeg,SVCD,XSVCD,VCD,DVD-R,DVD-RW,DVD+R,DVD+RW,CD,CD-RW and audio CDs).O.K. Tools needed are as follows,

2.DVD2AVI
3.VFAPIConverter (optional)
4.Headac3he (optional)
5.Bearsons Bitrate Calculator
6.TMPGenc Plus 2.5 (2.56.39.143) (The version I use) I tried a later version and it would not work as well for me.
7.TMPGDVDAuthor or Ulead DVD Factory
8.Chapter Xtractor

First using DVDDecrypter (or even SmartRipper) rip the dvd to your hard drive, just the movie files will do, (I usually rip the whole movie to hard drive anyway).

Next open DVD2AVI and click on FILE>OPEN, then search for your ripped movie and locate the 1st VOb file for the movie (usually VTS 01_01.vob), click on this file and the corresponding vob files for the film will follow, click ok, now press F5 to make sure that it is the movie that is running, if it is press Esc to stop it, now click AUDIO>TRACK NUMBER and check Track 1, and in Dolby Digital, check Demux. Now back to FILE>SAVE PROJECT, give it a name , and then let it run, the process usually takes 2-3 minutes, when its done close DVD2AVI.

Next open TMPGenc, load in your recently created d2v file, in the video source input, you can if you wish also load in the AC3 file and let TMPGenc encode both the audio and the video, but if using TMPGDVDAuthor to author the DVD it will accept the AC3 vesion of the finished movie, whereas the version (2) of ULead I have will only allow me to load in the movie with an MPEG format (so the choice here is up to you), I just encode the video and worry about the audio later. Now this is where the fun bit begins and the purists will probably have a seizure, but bear with me, it works, click the load tab at the bottom right of TMPG, then open the extras folder and then click on the unlock file, this will enable you to set your own preferences, then click on settings, first of at the top make sure it is in MPEG2 Video, next comes the size boxes, enter 353 X 288, and also for ALL movies leave the setting for aspect ratio at 4:3, the reason for this is that when authoring most of the programs complain if the size and aspect ratio of both films on the same disc are not identical. Frame rate is dependant on where in the world you are.
OK now for a little something out of the ordinary but it seems to work for me, all the info I've read on calculating bit rate for encoding a DVD compliant MPEG2 file just gave me immense headaches, so I just went back to my SVCD encoding days and thought hey why not see what happens if I enter the settings into Bearsons Bitrate Calculator, so I did, enter the length of the movie, then leave the no. of CDs to one set the size to 2200mb and the audio on the maximum, this gives you your bit rate at the bottom (I'm still working on this part of the process at the moment, because on 90% of the time I have been within 10mb of filling up a 4.7GB disc with 2 separate movies, but on other times I have had 250mb left over, so bear with me), note down this setting, and enter it into TMPG, keep the bit rate control mode at CBR. Now click the advanced tab and, set the source aspect ratio to whatever you want thwe output to be, mines a wide screen TV so I use 16:9 output, and the video arrange method should be Full Screen  Keep Aspect Ratio (2) then click ok now click save and save your personal settings so you dont have to keep changing it later.
Now on TMPGs main screen just click start, and leave it for an hour or so to encode the movie.

When this is done you will be left with an M2v file or if you encoded the audio as well an mpeg file.
If you only encoded the movie you can either re encode the AC3 file now to an MP2 format using HeadAC3he, and then using TMPG Multiplex the files together or just multiplex the AC3 file and the M2V file directly, either way you need to end up with an Mpeg file. When its done just check it in your pc's DVD player, to make sure everything seems ok. You need to do the above procedure with both your movies before you can author them.

Open up TMPGDVDAuthor at the top click on source setup click add file and load in your mpeg file, then on the left click add new track and enter your second mpeg, rename the files by clicking on their relevant settings options, If you wish and this is the only drawback to this method there is no way to import the original chapter settings, you can only do it manually or just place a chapter every so many minutes apart, its up to you, to do this just click on the edit clip tab and do what is necessary, next click on create menu, here you can choose the formats for your menus structure, its all pretty straightforward, just do as you feel is relevant, then just click on output and tell TMPG where to put it all, let it do its thing by authoring and creating a VIDEO_TS and an AUDIO_TS file ready to burn to a DVD disc (I personally use Nero)

This is just a quick guide to the way i do it any hints or tips for me would be appreciated, if it helps any one else out then its been worth it.

blackwatch2000@aol.com