I'm finding a lot of my DVDs say they contain many, many main titles. Some are exactly the same length and some are slightly longer/shorter. This is making it confusing when selecting a title to transcode.

For example:

Title 1: 1:24.50
Title 2: 1:24.50
Title 3: 1:24.50
Title 4: 1:26.02
Title 5: 1:26.02
Title 6: 1:26.02

etc...

Each title seems to have the same amount of chapters but I don't have the time to watch them side-by-side. What is strange is that sometimes the longest title (if you skip to the end) does not contain the ending! (I first assumed it was the longest title that I wanted).

I assume this is a form of copy protection; to annoy the user!

VLC does a good job picking up the correct title if I navigate through the DVD menu, but is there a simpler/quicker/more efficient way to determine the correct title? Reading one of the files in the DVD structure for example?

Unfortunately, there is no easy answer to this - as you said - it's a form of copy protection.

The manufacturer provides sometimes 99 tracks which show the main movie in various random chapter sequences. The best way to get around this is to find out which track your media player uses to play the DVD image. You can use your physical copy of the disk if you have a "real" dvd player or vlc or mplayer with the DVDNAV:// option to determine which track it's playing when you select to play the main movie from the disc menu.

This will be the track you need. The correct track is coded into DVD menu information, so only by going through the DVD menu will you know which track is the right one.

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just beaware what you are doing you are violating the copyright laws. Which I think is bogus. If you buy it you should retail the right to copy/modify it as you please for your own personal usage.

JMC1987 - totally agree - their are entire websites devoted to this topic, so probably won't spawn another thread here. In brief, "fair use" grants a copy to other media for personal use, DCMA seems to take away that right by making circumvention of copy protection illegal. If the law contradicts itself, who knows what's right? I'm assuming jsteel is talking about a "home" movie his friend made :P

Thanks I'll stick with VLC to determine the correct title.

'vobcopy' can usually determine the right one as well, it usually has the highest number of "angles", whatever those are.

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