Duplicated DVD Architect Menu won't work
 

I have a customer who is trying to make DVD copies of her wedding DVD that were created with Sony Vegas 7.0c and encoded in Sony DVD Architect 4. She is very computer savy and teaches web design at a local college.

The created DVD's (Six of them. Three copies of 2 DVD sets) all play perfectly fine with no problems on all DVD players and computers.

However, when she is trying to duplicate the DVD's using either "CloneDVD2", "DVD Shrink3.2", or "Nero" the DVD's don't function properly.
The DVD's play, but the DVD starts playing the first title right away, and never accesses the menu, and she can't access the menu.

She has tried the following methods already: (This is her message to me)

I have a internal DVD+-RW/CD-rw drive and used the following methods/software to duplicate the DVD (as video DVD), and all software I use are capable of duplicating DVD including all titles, menus, and special features:

1. the Drag'n Drop CD+DVD program come with my Sony Vaio Laptop. I used the Disc Backup function to backup the DVD.

2. CloneDVD2, which is especially for cloning a DVD including all titles and menus.

3. DVD Shrink 3.2 + Nero Burning ROM: for this method, I have tried both making a full backup directly and copying the files into a folder on hard disk and then burning into a DVD.

4. I have also followed your method to make folder on my hard disk and copy the files into the folder without using any software, and then make a Video DVD using DVD Shrink 3.2.


I am not familiar with any of her programs except for "Nero", as I either use my DVD duplicating tower of the actual DVDA program to make my disks now.

So I instructed her to:
1. Create a new folder on her computer "Wedding DVD"
2. Open the DVD
3. Drag and copy the folders "Audio TS" and Video TS" folders to the "Wedding DVD" folder exactly as they appear on the DVD disk.
4. Brun DVD using "Nero" as a video DVD

It sound to me like the DVD Menu .VOB/.IFO/.BUP files are missing to me.

Is there a reason that the DVD menu wouldn't copy correctly. Copy protection in the new DVDA4 or something?

I have offered to make copies for her if she can't do it herself, but just would like to troubleshoot the problem for her.

You were OK until you said:
4. Burn DVD using "Nero" as a video DVD.

Do it as a data DVD instead of a video DVD.
It's my understanding that Nero will try to recompress it and you don't want to do that.
I've been doing this (burn it as a data DVD) with RecordNow for years and it's never let me down.

Well, I'll give that a try myself. I have a backup copy of her DVD that I can try. I haven't used Nero in years, as I haven't had the need.

I'll try it a s a "Data" disk as you said first, and see if that works.

As long as these weren't dual layer disks, there's no reason why it shouldn't.
After all, a video DVD is just a bunch of data anyway :-)

Did she just try using "File>New>copy DVD" in Nero? Nero will make an exact copy this way.

Ron Evans