Combining Multiple Dvds To One Bluray And Keep Thumbnail Menus-Possible?

[sdp1969]

Hello,

 

I want to combine my 60 home movie DVDs to bluray. When I originally created the DVDs, I used a set top box by Toshiba that enabled me to make chapter points with their own thumbnail pics. I want to retain those thumbnails when I transfer them to bluray. I imagine a bluray top menu where each choice is each individual DVD. Once the DVD is chosen, then the thumbnails that I created previously would be there to chose from. I thought I read somewhere that Toast could do this conversion and retain the chapter points but now I cant find it. If Toast will not do this, does anyone know a software that will provide this functionality?

 

Thanks

 

Steven

[sdp1969]

I have an answer. It problem was the playstation 3. I took the blu-ray disk to Best Buy and put it in a Panasonic player and it played perfectly. No now the question is, is the problem with the player or with the newest release of Toast as you describe above. I really don't want to have to buy a dedicated blu-ray player to watch my home movies. On the positive side, I can stop racking my brain trying to figure out what I am doing wrong.

 

Thanks again for your help,

 

Steven

[tsantee]

It is possible as long as Toast doesn't encounter a problem with timecode breaks. DVD's created with standalone DVD recorders often have timecode breaks every 30 seconds or so in the video. Toast usually has problems with those. In order to remove the timecode breaks you need to use an application called MPEG Streamclip, but that may also lead to the loss of the chapter markers.

 

Let's assume that timecode breaks aren't an issue. Here's how to proceed:

 

1. Insert one of the existing DVDs and select it with the Toast Copy window. Choose Save as Disc Image. Do this for each of the discs. You'll then want to mount each of the disc images that have videos you want on the Blu-ray disc.

 

2. Choose Blu-ray Disc as the setting in the Toast Video window. In the Toast Media Browser click the Videos tab and open the DVD item. There you'll see the titles that are on the mounted disc images. Select a title you want and click the + button. In a few seconds a window appears showing the video you chose. Here you can trim the video if you want. Click okay to add it to the main Toast window. Repeat for the other titles you want.

 

3. Click the Edit button next to each title and click the Chapters button. Select "Manual" to force Toast to keep the chapters that are shown as a list below.

 

4. Click the Customize button and choose your menu style. Put a check mark for adding scene menus. Click the Encoder tab and choose Custom. In the window that appears choose "Never" re-encoding.

 

Edit the video titles the way you want for your main menu. You also can select a different thumbnail image from each video title to be the menu button.

 

You are then ready to choose Save as Disc Image or click the burn button. Toast will place a thumbnail image at the location for each chapter. How it works when playing is you click on the thumbnail for a title and the scene menu appears. You then click on the thumbnail for scene 0 to begin playing from the start.

 

If there is a problem with timecode breaks then you may need to save the fixed videos from MPEG Streamclip and add those to Toast. It is likely you will need to create new chapter marker locations in the window where I mentioned choosing Manual settings.

 

None of these steps involve re-encoding the videos. They will look identical to the existing videos.

[sdp1969]

Thanks for the response. Since receiving your suggestions, I have been busy following its directions exactly to put 10 home movie DVDs onto a bluray disk with thumbnails just like you described. The disk plays on my Macbook pro using Mac blu ray player but it will NOT play on my PS3. The menu comes up just fine and when I cilck on a chapter I see a black screen with audio. I went back and tried converting to MP4 but that gave me the same results. I am going to take the disks to Best Buy later today to see if they play on other blu ray machines. Any suggestions?

 

Set up:

Macbook pro w retina display

Toast 11 w HD add-on

Pioneer BD-R 206

Media TDK BD-R DL

[tsantee]

Thanks for the response. Since receiving your suggestions, I have been busy following its directions exactly to put 10 home movie DVDs onto a bluray disk with thumbnails just like you described. The disk plays on my Macbook pro using Mac blu ray player but it will NOT play on my PS3. The menu comes up just fine and when I cilck on a chapter I see a black screen with audio. I went back and tried converting to MP4 but that gave me the same results. I am going to take the disks to Best Buy later today to see if they play on other blu ray machines. Any suggestions?

 

Set up:

Macbook pro w retina display

Toast 11 w HD add-on

Pioneer BD-R 206

Media TDK BD-R DL

I've read a variety of posts regarding Blu-ray menu problems with Toast-burned discs on various players. This came up a lot while Roxio kept releasing new versions of Toast 11.1. I thought the last one (1072) fixed it but apparently not. You might try burning a disc using (1067) which is the version on Roxio's software updates page. You don't have to create the disc in that version. Just use it to burn the disc. Sorry that you're having to do all this experimenting.