Output ISO with menus & special features?
Posted: Fri Nov 10, 2017 6:49 am
Obviously, Handbrake is very handy for many different tasks, and certainly not the least of these is that it can accept a .iso input file, e.g. from a DVD rip, can find the main title, and then can quite easily and simply transcode that to a (modern & compact) .mp4 file.
For anyone who wants to make compact /space efficient backups of their DVDs, this is obviously extremely useful. And I've done it myself on several occasions.
The problem, of course, is that in this process, one loses all of the menus and special features from the original DVD.
Sure, one can easily instruct Handbrake to transcode each of the several titles on a DVD to its own separate output .mp4 file, and then you will have a set of .mp4 files that represent all titles on the DVD. But now you have several files, rather than just one, which is a bit cumbersome, and you don't have the original DVD menus anymore.
So, you know, I was just wondering if anyone had ever previously proposed an enhancement / new feature for Handbrake whereby it would transcode -all- of the titles contained within a DVD .iso file at one go -and- where it would place those -and- the original DVD menus into a single output .iso file. Has anyone ever suggested that?
The point would be to preserve, as much as possible, the structure of the original DVD, including its menus, while reducing the size of the thing dramatically.
I'm guessing that this might not be possible if the output format were the same style of .iso as is used for DVDs, because as I understand it, in that case the only video encoding expected or allowed is MPEG2. But the new style .iso file format used for Blu-Ray allows for the content to be MPEG4/AAC, so I would think that this kind of (new) feature would work if the output file were just made to look like a Buy-Ray style .iso file, e.g. of the kind that Kodi knows how to play. (And that would suit me just fine, because Kodi is what I already use to play most everything I have anyway.)
What say you all? Is this a dumb idea for some reason I'm not seeing? Has anything like this been proposed before?
I don't imagine that DVD menus should be that awfully hard to copy.
For anyone who wants to make compact /space efficient backups of their DVDs, this is obviously extremely useful. And I've done it myself on several occasions.
The problem, of course, is that in this process, one loses all of the menus and special features from the original DVD.
Sure, one can easily instruct Handbrake to transcode each of the several titles on a DVD to its own separate output .mp4 file, and then you will have a set of .mp4 files that represent all titles on the DVD. But now you have several files, rather than just one, which is a bit cumbersome, and you don't have the original DVD menus anymore.
So, you know, I was just wondering if anyone had ever previously proposed an enhancement / new feature for Handbrake whereby it would transcode -all- of the titles contained within a DVD .iso file at one go -and- where it would place those -and- the original DVD menus into a single output .iso file. Has anyone ever suggested that?
The point would be to preserve, as much as possible, the structure of the original DVD, including its menus, while reducing the size of the thing dramatically.
I'm guessing that this might not be possible if the output format were the same style of .iso as is used for DVDs, because as I understand it, in that case the only video encoding expected or allowed is MPEG2. But the new style .iso file format used for Blu-Ray allows for the content to be MPEG4/AAC, so I would think that this kind of (new) feature would work if the output file were just made to look like a Buy-Ray style .iso file, e.g. of the kind that Kodi knows how to play. (And that would suit me just fine, because Kodi is what I already use to play most everything I have anyway.)
What say you all? Is this a dumb idea for some reason I'm not seeing? Has anything like this been proposed before?
I don't imagine that DVD menus should be that awfully hard to copy.