Simple Movie Transcode and Authoring

I am completely new to dvd-r. I have done divx for a long time but this seems to be a "bit" more compicated *cough*. Basically I want to re-encode video with CCE and create a disc with just the movie on it. I followed the robshot method for encoding the video (then ran pulldown on it) and demuxed the audio with smartripper. I then tried using Maestro to re-author the disc, just adding the ac3 and m2v resources and loading the chapter file created by Chapter Extractor. The project compiled fine and the vobs play back great, synched and all, but I when I open the .ifo it doesn't do anything. So I gave IFOedit a shot, remuxing .m2v and re-creating .ifo files. This compile opened fine in PowerDVD using the ifo, but the sound got slowly out of synch when not using the CCE option, and the video chopped massively when using the CCE option. I guess my 2 questions are, is there a certain pulldown to use with IFOedit, I used prog_frames because of the maestro guide, is it causing problems with IFOedit? Also, is importing the chapter list into the .ecl for CCE necessary for both of these tools or should I not encode this way for IFOedit. If I could get the Maestro IFO to open that would be best, since video looks great and audio synchs when playing back vobs alone. Thanks, Demi9OD

btw someone should write a simple guide for this as it's the easiest way to do dvd9 to dvd5. Most dvd9 discs have more than 4.3 gigs of video data on them and while Trilights guide is nice this could be something for the beginners. Simply rip m2v and ac3 streams with Smartripper, get CCE and Maestro Chapter files from ifo, encode m2v with CCE, re-author with Maestro. Maybe I'll do the HTML if anyone is interested :).

Welcome to DVD, Demi! As the title of the guide says, it is "full copy" instructions. There are a lot of posts in the forum referencing doing the "main movie only". The Maestro guide on the forum is another good source for this. It goes into recreating a menu but that whole part can simply be left out if someone just wants to do the movie and the chapter points. Again, welcome to DVD! I think you'll find it much more flexible and of a higher quality than other things you've worked with.

Yeah I have been really impressed with CCEs quality, even when trimming long demanding movies like Gladiator and Lord of the rings down to 1cd m2v's. Now I just need a DVD burner to get all these 4.5 gig images off my HD. Thanks for the welcome Trilight :)