Nero Recode: "Merge Titles" Feature DOESN'T Merge

[ZamboniGuy]

Hi - there have been post on another forum but I was referred here as I'm led to believe you folks know your stuff!

When using recode (latest version, REMAKE A DVD feature) I've attempted numerous times to join two individual titles together for one seemless presentation. I have used this feature both with and without also using the "Start/End" title trimmer.

In one case I was attempting to insert one title inside another from the same disk. In another I was appending two titles from separate disks.

In each case, each original title or title part remained a separate title. Whereas in each case I'd expect just one Title on the final disk; I was left with 3 in case one and two in case two. My technique is explained below.

In Case 1, from the same disk and Titleset, Title one includes 27 Chapters. Title 10 Includes 1 Chapter. My goal was to insert Title 10 between two chapters, let us say 15 and 16 because I can't remember. I used Remake a DVD and added the following Titles to "My DVD Compilation": Title 1, Title 10, Title 1 (2). I used "Start/End" to trim the end point of Title 1 to the index mark of Chap 16. I Then used it again to trim the Start point of Title 1 (2) to the index mark of Chap 16. I then selected the 3 titles and selected "Merge Titles" creating a single line item.

When previewed, the transitions happened seemlessly. Perfectly.

In Case 2, I simply took all of Title 1 from Disk A and added all of Title 1 from Disk B. I again merged the titles, previewed the result and everything looked perfect.

Both projects resulted in DVD's no different from the DVD's of the same Projects with the "Merge Titles" step omitted.

In both Cases, neither project actually resulted in the merging of any titles. This feature obviously does not work; so I ask, "What is it's purpose?"

If it wasn't to Merge Titles in the actual resulted DVDs, why is it there? If it is simply to reduce clutter in the "My DVD Compilation" window, I ask, "WTF??"

If however, it is supposed to actually reassign the chapters of two separate titles into a single set of chapters in ONE title, then this feature is broken, at least for many of us, and Nero's assistane would be appreciated.

I'll be forwarding this request to tech support at Nero (I am an actual paid customer), but they are usually quite a bit slower (and often less knowledgeable or helpful as the customers and Nero employees on the forums)....

Thanks for your time and assistance.

David

PS: Anybody got word on the fix for "Do Not Eject Disk After Burn" Checkboxes that don't do a damn thing, no matter what state you put them in? PLEASE make nero STOP auto-ejecting my disk tray!

[CCampbell]

If a self-made DVD compilation contains a number of titles, you can combine these to one single title so they are seamlessly joined.

That's all this feature is meant to do.

I did select two titles and merge them so that they are joined, and playback plays one title, and immediately after it is finished the second title plays.

It would appear that it's doing what its supposed to do.

Regards,

Craig

[ZamboniGuy]

Please define "immediately". All the players I have access to take a few moments to make the transitions - at least a few seconds - moving from one title to the next, while the last frame of the first title pauses. Not a nightmare, but not what I was hoping for.

Excuse me for being belligerent, but what happens if you don't merge the two titles? In my experience - the exact same thing.

When you create a DVD with "Remake a DVD"; there is no menu. Absent a menu, all titles play in order. This occurs whether "merged" or not. It doesn't seem to me Title A "merged" to Title B should appear to the player to be two different titles. I think that if Titles A and B were "merged" then they should play as, for example, Title C (which combines the content of titles A & B). Assuming 10 Chapters each Title, the DVD should have 20 Chapters under Title 1; Not 10 Chapters on Title 1 and 10 more chapters on Title 2; as seems to be the case now. Again, whether or not you merge the titles.

Thanks again...

[CCampbell]

I see what your getting at. I'll have to check with our Engineers to see what they assume 'Merge' means and how they expect it to respond.

Once I know that, I can see if this is a bug, or a poor feature that needs to be improved.

But yes, I do have the same 1 second delay before the second title plays.

Regards

Craig

[ZamboniGuy]

Thanks!

[CCampbell]

Apparently this bug has been in our database since Oct 2004, and due to other more urgent issues has been pushed back in regards to priority.

Shows you how often I use the feature.


This will be addressed eventually, but I can not give you an exact time frame right now. We hope to have it addressed in the next couple of months, but this can be pushed back again if other more urgent development causes it to be delayed.

Regards,

Craig

[ZamboniGuy]

Well, thanks for looking it up for me. It's nice, at least, knowing there might be a solution in the works ... eventually. Any word on the eject issue, by any chance? Care to go two for two?

[CCampbell]

The Eject issue I am not able to duplicate with Nero Express, Nero Burning ROM, or Nero BackItUp. In all cases, the eject is prevented if you have the preference set for it not to eject the disc after a write operation.

I do remember one customer reporting this issue before in the past, and it turned out to be another program that was causing this feature to not work properly. I believe it was CloneDVD, but that's just a guess as it's been some time and I'm not 100% sure that was the program he reported the conflict with.

Regards,

Craig

[ZamboniGuy]

I don't believe it is a software conflict as I had only Windows XP SP2 and DVD Decrypter on my computer after a recent reformat and still had this issue. I know of a couple people at least who also have this issue, who responded to some other threads about it.

I now only have MediaPlayer 10, Office 2002, Photoshop 7 and MusicMatch 7.5 in addition to Nero and XP. A couple other recent add.s surely don't matter as I've had the problem a long time. If it was a problem with Clone-CD, what was the conflict? (I've never even seen this program - but I'm very curious how IT could make NERO eject disks).

I've got an internal Memorex F16 DVD Burner, and Memorex something or other CD burner, if that is an issue. But I'd hope not, since you bundled your software with them both. (Though I paid full retail for the Nero Ultra Edition Retail box, inexplicably ... . I guess I really wanted that red label applicator I never used).

This part bugs me when I hear it isn't a problem with Nero, but me. But thanks for the info.

The Eject issue I am not able to duplicate with Nero Express, Nero Burning ROM, or Nero BackItUp. In all cases, the eject is prevented if you have the preference set for it not to eject the disc after a write operation.

But that's the kicker, ain't it? My problem lies with Recode!

You see, I'd like to let Nero think, compress, and burn a disk while I (a) go to sleep, or (b) go to Taco Bell (a 'fast food' restaurant for you international folks) ... or sometimes, even maybe, once in a while - on very special occasions only - (c) go to work. And trust Nero not to leave my DVD door open, exposing disk and burner to the dust all day / night. I'd be much more productive If I didn't have to babysit Nero, ready to put the disk away and reclose the drive door when it finishes burning and attempts to batter open my desk drawer.

It's nice that Burning Rom and BackItUp might not eject the disk, but those programs never take more than 8 minutes to do their thing anyway. Nero might take an hour.

Thanks again for your time....

[NoSmartz]

it sounds like 2 .dll's or 2 drivers are conflicting with each other.I had this issue a couple of years ago with a HP printer.It would print sometime but not all the time.I found a 2nd HP driver/.dll in the printer folder and removed it,case closed.This may or may not be you issue.

[CCampbell]

Hi ZamboniGuy,

I never said it was or was not a problem with Nero.

I said I was not able to duplicate it, of course I neglected to test it with Recode.

I mentioned the issue reported quite some time in the past to indicate that a conflict with another programs drivers or DLL's could be the cause of the problem. This was intended to give you a direction to go to try and resolve the issue, even if it was just to have you list what software you do have on your system.

Once we isolate the cause of the problem, we can then see if it's something we can resolve in our software.

I'll have to test Recode when I get the chance to see if I am able to duplicate this. Maybe if anyone else on this forum uses Recode regularly, they could provide input as to if they too see this issue with the Nero Recode option that prevents the disc from ejecting after a write operation is compelte.

Regards,

Craig

[ZamboniGuy]

Maybe if anyone else on this forum uses Recode regularly, they could provide input as to if they too see this issue with the Nero Recode option that prevents the disc from ejecting after a write operation is compelte.

There was talk on these threads recently on CD Freaks

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=125183

and here

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=119604

But I'm new to the forums and don't know if there might be others...

[Edit]

By the way ... when I read all my posts together, I sure sound like a bitchy a-hole often enough. Sorry about that. I think it was more exasperation and sarcasm I was feeling / trying to show when I wrote most of those. To those that have helped me solve my problems in spite of all this, I thank you again for your patience. I'm sorry for ripping on Nero tech support - especially if the people answering those emails are the same people helping here.... I just haven't had much luck with the answers I've gotten going the "official" route ... yet.

[ZamboniGuy]

I said I was not able to duplicate it, of course I neglected to test it with Recode.

Yeah, I guess I coulda been more specific there - didn't intend to make you waste your time looking at the other apps. Doh!

[lionels]

Hi CCampbell,
Just on the Merge facility in Recode, this has been also raised on two other forums (cd freaks & afterdawn). This matter was also raised by me to Tech Support in your head office in Germany in the last three weeks. Like your initial response this was not perceived to be a problem by Nero but perhaps a user issue. Anyway after weeks of back and forth with them wanting data details, me doing some tests for them etc etc, the end result was the problem was still there. I had insisted from the start that this was an issue the developers should look at as it was raised by other users on other forums. They have finally advised that (I am sure through persistence) this was now passed on to the developers who have now got this and have managed to replicated the problem I have described and will look to a solution sometime.

My question is how many other people have tried to raise this and given up or got as far as tech support in their relevant country and left it as is. How come Nero head office waste weeks of their time and the customers time when all along as advised by you this was logged in their own database as an issue? Maybe it is not getting the priority for a fix because people that have tried to use this facility found it didn't work and left it at that. Others have raised it and perhaps gave up or left it as the tech support was not able to resolve it and did not push for a solution beyond them. Just an observation from reading this an other forums and my experience with tech support.

[CCampbell]

Hi Lionels,

I truly can not say how many may have brought this issue up, and how many may have been playing tag with our various Tech Support Reps.

We have a number of permanent Tech's, who would be aware of this issue and know what channels to go through to make sure it's resolved. But then we have some temps who may not be aware of this issue and may not know the proper channels to go through to make sure this was properly brought to our Engineers attention.

When these issue are made aware to our Tech Managers, they normally make sure ALL of our tech's are breifed on the issue and made aware as to the proper response. We have a Database that we create for 'Auto Responses' for our Temps, so that they can pull this information from that database, if they enter the correct key words. And they can always go to the Senior Techs or the Tech Manager if they are unsure. I'm sure at first a few had the same issue as I did. And then others may not have felt secure in their position to bring this to a senior tech's attention.

But it is being addressed, and we will have a solution for this in a future release.

Regards,

Craig

[ZamboniGuy]

Thanks alot, Craig.

I, for one, anxiously await this feature being fixed. You can let folks know this feature has many great uses they may not have thought of (at least since they first implemented it), and that I haven't raised yet in this forum. The best example I can think of now is allowing people to turn all their flippers (double-sided DVD's) into one nice single sided disk. Currently, the transition sucks, and each side becomes a different title, which screws up navigation from chapter to chapter with most players.

Thanks again.

[lionels]

Hi Craig
Thanks for your explanation, it wasn't just one tech it was a number (different one picked up each time they dealt with me) but anyway point taken. At least I am confident knowing you permanent guys with experience always do your best.

Craig I agree with ZamboniGuy on this. I think this is a very exciting tool in dvd authoring that I believe Nero leads the way in so far. There are many other uses I can think of that Zamboniguy didn't mention as well. Are you able to please follow up with your guys or contacts in development to suggest or ask if the priority can be raised on this as more users are raisng this as an issue (not to mention the authoring advantage over others with this).

Many thanks again,
Lionel

[CCampbell]

I will see what I can do to raise the priority of this issue. But we have a lot on our table right now, so I can not promise anything.

But I do agree this is a feature that can be used to great advantage in many different ways.

Regards,

Craig

[lionels]

I have not given up on the merging titles facility and have also been pursuing Nero on this most of the year. I have finally just got confirmation from the developers that this issue will be resolved in version 7. They also advise a trial version will be available on their homepage in the next few days (of version 7) so people can check this out when available and see if this now works. Good news but pity theydidn't cater for the version 6 users and included in their last updates.

[CCampbell]

Hi Lionels,

Don't give up on us yet.

Once I'm sure this feature is working in Nero 7 version of Recode, I'll push to have it implemented for Nero 6 users as well. As long as I can convince them that this is a bug, then logically it should also be resolved for Nero 6 builds as well.

But it will have to wait till most Nero 7 issues have been addressed. Which by the way I just recieved a new Nero 7 build for QA purposes, and so far it looks like our Engineers have done a good job on resolving the most critical and quite a number of minor problems we had with the first release of Nero 7.

Regards,

Craig

[lionels]

Thanks Craig for your support and for trying to see this through for us. We will watch with interests over the forthcoming weeks or months to see if indeed Nero have fixed it as they claim and if it will then flow through to version 6.

[lionels]

I have made a discovery with Nero which I am not sure Nero themselves are fully aware of. I have found that using Nerovision Express (3) with Make DVD Video it has the facility to merge titles properly. I tried it out and guess what it works perfectly without any pause between titles. Only problem is it does not allow you to keep multiple audio tracks like Dolby Digital (AC-3) etc or subtitles so this is no good to most of us.

Surely it is not a case of developers for Nero Recode not being aware of the developers of Nero Express 3's achievement in the successful implementation of this process which has been there for a long time? If the code is there maybe someone needs to politely point it out to them so we (the long awaiting users) can finally benefit. Obviously a communication breakdown somewhere along the line if it is as appears.

[jberry]

first off, you just cannot merge anything!!!

DVD spec says that within each VTS you must have same bitrate AC-3. so you could never merge a movie with bitrate 192 and 256. Nor can you merge 2.0 stereo with 5.1. All video and audio characteristics must be the same on a merge or multiple vts sets will be made, which is as it must be.

Also when you merge a non-seamless flag is set, so there will be a pause. Only way to get a seamless merge is to demux all streams and merge in VideoRedo or use TMPG DVD Author, which has a smart IFO import. With TMPG it looks at the movies and if they are the same (remember DVD spec says they must be if you are to merge them) then it will alter all IFO pointers to ensure that the merge is seamless.

Sorry, Nero Recode is just not that sophisticated to do this in all cases yet. TMPG is the only canned package that can do this perfectly pretty much all the time.

The best way is to demux you streams and join them manually, that way you can change chapters, etc, but this takes more time.

[lionels]

I understand there may be difficulties or limitations at times when combing different movies. However when merging multiple titles (say for example from a movie where the unwanted bits are taken out thus having to create multiple titles) it is possible to merge them. DVDone2 for example not only does it but with multiple audio tracks and subtitles and there is no pause between titles merged on playback so not sure why the big issue with Recode2?

I understand TMPG DVD does not support more than one audio track or DTS not sure about VideoRedo but maybe you can advise.

My comment was an observation based on using Nero and noted that maybe the developers were unaware of what the other (development) team were doing and only needed to have this pointed out to perhaps make further progress or resolve it. Or it may be a case of they already know but have some other issue. No harm in exploring this possibility. Also I suppose no harm in them (Recode 2 developers) seeing how others internal and external (as above) have tackled this problem because I am sure others (external) have based or developed some ideas on Nero.

Merging titles is a function people have been asking for from Nero for a while and believe we are not far from a resolution. We just have to keep reminding them that this issue is still important to us so it gets some priority. If you hunt around other forums you will see we are not the only ones asking for it.

[jberry]

you can only join movie streams that are exact in terms of audio and video. DVD2One will join anything which has caused some players to choke. Not sure why Recode has issues...................