Well, I finally got around to checking this sucker out (Cendyne DVR-105) and I have to say that it was more than an adventure to get it done right. I wanted to do some home footage, but I didn't really feel like going through and capturing a bunch of stuff so I ripped a DVD. I used alot of info from Doom9's guides and while I learned a lot I also got really frustrated. My goal was to rip it with the menus (at minimum chapters) and the main movie, no extra stuff, since it wouldn't fit or I would have to atleast re-compress the entire thing. I wasn't really up for that.

First off I found out that it is a lot simpler just to re-do the menus and chapters, everything that I tried to get the PGC crap right did not work. Maybe I was using IFO Edit wrong, but there is a lot to a VTS file. All I wanted was chapters to work right. Second off, I had to re-encode the movie anyway, it was just a little too big, which is good, I wanted to go through the some of the process anyway. I used CCE and a nice little app called CCE Guesser that gives you a bitrate and quality setting to use for single pass that looks just as good as multi-pass (supposedly). Seemed to work quite well; higher bitrates allow for a little slop and the file size was decent (not too small or too big). I tried a new app called DoCCE4U, but I had issues with the "open" button dialog and by the time I go that straight it was hours later. I ultimately used CCE alone.

This is getting long so I will cut to the chase. This is what I found to be the easiest for me:

Use DVD Decryptor to rip the main movie in ISO mode

Mount the image in a virtual drive like Alcohol120% or Daemon tools

Use DVD2AVI to extract the desired language for audio and save as a project

Use Chapter Extractor to get your chapter times from the ripped IFO file of the main movie, copy them to a text document or something similar

Use CCE Guesser to determine the Q and minimum bitrates to use in CCE and encode the movie using single pass through an AVISynth script:

LoadPlugin("<location of mpeg2.dll>mpeg2dec.dll")
mpeg2source("<location of DVD2avi project>.d2v")
ResampleAudio(44100)

Use pulldown if necessary (if you used force film in DVD2AVI it is necessary or else 99% of authoring apps won't take the file)

Edit the movie in SpruceUp, create chapters (using the times in fomr Chapter Extractor) and menus or whatever you want

Total time was about 2.5 to 3 hours (plus about 72 hours of getting to this method) I found that SpruceUp was much faster and easier to use than any other DVD authoring tool out there (even as old and dead as it is). Everything is so intuitive and everything works. The help file was even easy to follow and actually had useful stuff. The options and features were advanced enough to keep the project interesting and professional looking while the ease of use made it fast and not tylenol inspiring. I really don't understand how this product just died off. It supports AC3 audio and linking menus and media assets and creating chapters with buttons from the scenes and... It just doesn't get any nicer than this program. Only "problem" was that I cannot write directly to my DVD-R, I had to burn an image to disc, but that wasn't a big deal as I could run it through a SW DVD player to make sure it was right.

Once again, SpruceUp rules, I wish it was still around. All of the programs used were freeware, except for CCE and SpruceUp. You can always use TMPGEnc which is about $50 and SpruceUp was only $99 when it was available. Not too shabby. Best part is that my standalone plays the disc quite well.

Your post was 90% ripping tutotial (a nice one) and then DVD authoring. I agree with Spruce up - I started with this prog then moved to DVD Movie factory2 which I find is great for the money ($50). I ALMOST bought the Worlkshop ($200) but had (have) 2nd thoughts.

I forgot to add one more thing, if the movie is 16:9, SpruceUp will only support 4:3 so after you create the Title set, you need to use an app like IFO Edit to change the header to 16:9 again. I haven't tried it yet but I am aware of it. There are also some other apps that may do it, but IFOEdit was recommended.

Thanks for the update Gooly. Unfortunately, my experience was somewhat like yours. I spent days trying to reauthor The Tuxedo and finally just gave up and bought DVDXCOPY. I have to admit that The Tuxedo had some strange things done to it, which I think made it hard for me to try to reauthor. I might try to play with a very simple DVD with few or no extras and see if that can get me going.

Why did you have to use a virtual cd? In DVD2AVI just click on the 1st .vob of the set and it'll add them all.

I rip with smartripper or DVD decrypter to diskfile (~15min). Load the .vob in dvd2avi and save project to get a .d2v file(~8min). Run the .dv2 file through vpapi convert (~30sec) and then I load the fake .avi file created in my choice of converters (YEAH Procoder).

Now I convert everthing to high bitrate vcd format with 48k audio. convert the audio to .ac3 using ac3machine/bbsweet and image in DVDit PE 2.5.2 to a DVD+R disk.

I can fit 6 movies at VHS quality on 1 DVD!!!!1

Yes, you are right yuo can do the VOB's seperate nd not use a virtual drive, I did it as a matter of necessity since one of my Doom9 attempts failed miserably and I didn't feel like ripping again. Plus I wanted to play with the virtual drive, it was neat. Lame excuse, I know. The main pont was to put the Doom9 DVD authoring issue in the forefront and to talk good about SpruceUp. I am actually excited about my next project. About time I got into this stuff again with a smile.

I was thinking about the same thing as well, I did a Sopranos SVCD rip that looked great on my standalone and thought, I could put about 5-6 episodes on one disc in a similar format. I may do someting similar just to try it, low bitrate with CCE looks pretty nice. I figure that VHS resolution is not that bad, most of the problems with VHS is poor frequency response, tracking, tape stretching, head switching errors and dihedral or escentricity errors. You put it in digital format where none of that mechanical stuff comes in and it is going to be better than VHS. Maybe a project for this weekend.