Merge Mode Guide

Using Merge Mode

This great new feature was introduced in the V3.0.7.5 beta for DVDFab Platinum, and is a powerful addition to your DVD toolset. What can it do? Here are a few examples:

• Put a two-disc movie onto a single disc; say goodbye to “flipper” discs forever!
• Make a special disc with titles from many sources, like a cartoon carnival disc for the kids.
• Put two versions of the same title on one disc.
• Make a disc of just “Extras” and “Making Ofs”.
• Make your own “Night at the Movies” disc, with feature, cartoon and extras.
• Interleave material from different sources with chapter length control.

The First Step(If you’re in a hurry just read the boldface type +Tips at the end)

is to decide what sources to use for your project. Valid sources are DVD discs (but you must have an optical drive for each disc source), DVD folders and ISO files. The merge process runs faster if you copy the merge sources to your HDD before starting. All sources must be continuously available until the merge process completes—you can’t pop a DVD out of a drive and put in another; if you do, the Merge entries from the disc you remove will be deleted from the Merge list. In practice this means that you’ll be copying to HDD for some sources anyway, unless you have lots of optical drives or a project with few sources.

Next,

when you’ve decided on the sources and copied them to your HDD if necessary, Open DVDFab Platinum and click on “Merge”. The first of two screens will appear, which are referred to throughout as Merge1 and Merge2. Merge1 is used to select the title sources for your project. If you start with a DVD in Fab’s default drive it will appear as the first source. The window should populate and look similar to the Customize mode screen.

Sources can be added in any order since Merge2 lets you re-arrange them much like the “Advanced Title Options” button in the standard DVD-to-DVD modes, but it’s easier to keep track of the Merge process if you’ll add the sources in the order you plan to use them. Add your sources using the Source drop down (to select optical drives) or the Folder or ISO Source buttons.

As each is selected it will be analyzed and added to the Merge list which is displayed on Merge2. As you add each source, select the title, audio stream and subpicture you want to include.

Now

click Next to bring up the Merge2 screen. If you’re just converting a flipper disc or putting a two-sided movie onto one disc, you will only see two sources listed. If you’re making a “favorites” compilation you may have several. Verify the order of the titles and included chapters, make any changes, select DVD5/9, select a target, and click Start to begin the merge. The text window will give you a running progress report much like the other modes. You will get the same successful completion chime (hopefully) and boxes the other modes produce when all goes well.

Example: Favorites Disc

Here is a sample merge project that illustrates the flexibility and power of this mode. For the test I made a kid’s cartoon compilation of titles from the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2 using discs one and three, and two episodes from Pinky and The Brain Volume 1. First I copied all necessary elements to separate HDD folders. Since there were lots of titles from Looney Tunes disc 1, I did a Full Disc copy of that one, but copied only the desired titles from everything else to save time. The titles from the first source, the full disc copy, are spread throughout the compilation. To spread them out like this you can either re-select the source using the drop down in Source, re-load the source using the Folder/ISO source button, or select all the titles at once and move them around using the UP/Down buttons. It doesn’t seem to make much difference, but if you use the drop down Source selector, DVDFab will remember and display with checkmarks the titles you’ve already used from that source. Just check the one(s) you want to add. They will appear in the proper order on the Merge2 screen. This Merge completed in a little over 7 minutes reading and writing using two hard drives. Discs will be slower.

Example: Converting a "Flipper" Disc to a Single

Step 1

Insert the disc you want to convert into your drive with side B down and set to be read. Open DVDFab Platinum and make sure the drive with the movie has appeared in the Source window. Select Customize mode with the NO MENUS button selected (you can use Main Movie but it sometimes selects the wrong title on side B of flippers). Use the preview window to make sure you have part 2 of the movie as the selected title, then stop preview and make any selections of audio tracks and subtitles. Remember what you have selected here as the merged titles seem to run better if both are the same as far as audio tracks are concerned. Now select a hard drive folder as the target and click Start. Click Finish when done.

Step 2

When Step 1 completes, take out the disc and flip it one last time so that side A is down and let it load into DVDFab Platinum. When the analysis completes, click Merge and make sure the disc shows up in the Source window. Now select the title for Part 1 of the movie and verify you have it right with the preview window. Select the audio and subtitle elements that match your choices from Step 1 and press Next. Verify that the first and only item on this screen's Title List has the little DVD icon and possibly the title of the movie (may say just DVD_VOLUME). Now, while still on this screen, click on the Source folder icon and open the VIDEO_TS folder of the hdd files of Part 2 of the movie that you prepared in Step 1. The screen will snap back to the first Merge page to allow you to double check all settings (which should be fine since you made these choices in Step 1). Click Next and verify that the second item on the Title list has a folder icon and the correct running time for Part 2.

Step 3

While on the second Merge page, select the Target drive and make any changes to burn speed, etc. in Common Settings if needed. (You can also write this to a folder on the HDD if you want to verify it by playing before burning.) When all is setup and ready, click Start and the Merge process will begin. If something goes wrong during the process, click the SAVE button before exiting to write a log file.

Tips

• Think the merge through before you start. Don’t wind up ready to push Start and realize you need to copy another source to the HDD.
• Merge mode will not allow you to re-use or duplicate a title on the merge list using the drop down source selector. This can be accomplished if necessary by re-loading the source using the folder or ISO Source buttons. You can, as I did in the first Example above, re-use a source using the drop down selector as long as you select a different title from the one already on the merge list.
• There are no menus on merged volumes.
• DVDFab makes the same default title selections in Merge that it does in Main Movie, so be sure to UNcheck that title if you don’t want it.
• You can go back and forth between the two screens as often as necessary.
• The Preview window is your friend like never before. Remember that it updates the Title and Chapter numbers just above the viewer window in real time while running and will be a tremendous help in setting chapter begin and end points if you need to do that.