How can I create USB thumb drive with menus.

Lee-Beck wrote on 12/7/2024, 8:27 PM

I've been producing DVDs and Blu-ray for decades and am proficient with Pinnacle Studio. I'm currently using PS-26 and can make DVDs. But these days most computers don't have optical drives.

I have several hundred DVDs of family and travel. My adult son recently asked for video of his childhood. I reminded him that I gave him several DVDs of him and his sister ranging from birth to early adulthood. Like most consumers he doesn’t have anything that can read DVDs.

Most of my family/travel DVDs have menus. I’m hoping that I can remake the DVDs to files that I could place on a USB drive. To that end I’d appreciate recommendations for inexpensive software. PS-26 can make DVD menus (Video_TS or BDMV) and can import video with menus. And NERO can copy DVD and produce a file, but without menu navigation. The current ~$40 Magix sale is inexpensive but the sale ends in a few hours.

Suggestions on how to produce menued files from DVDs or inexpensive software to do that is appreciated.

Comments

AAProds wrote on 12/7/2024, 9:16 PM

Magix cannot, as far as I am aware, insert chapters into a video file. It can only create menus via the DVD process, which is obviously not what you want.

Some comments on this issue:

-MKVToolnix, I understand, has the ability to insert chapter points into files that are in MKV format (they can be AVC or MPEG, I believe, so you DVD files should be OK). A 2-month old comment in this YT (just down from the top) video details how to do it.

-Whether the MKVToolnix chapters can be read by a TV, I don't know.

-My current process is to join up the DVD VOB files back up into one large MPEG 2, then split it into the various "subjects" and give those subject files descriptive names starting with the date eg "20050623 Aeroclub Flyin Merredin". The advantage of this is that, as soon as you open the parent folder (which would be, in this case, "2005") on your TV or PC, you can see all the files and their names and you can go straight to a particular event, instead of having to open a 2 hour-long file looking at the chapters to find what you want to look at.

I use Magix to do the splitting of that large ex-DVD file into multiple movies (separate MP4s) and editing eg titles, fades, colour correction and then batch-export all the movies in the group at the end. Your Pinnacle 26 can probably do the same.

AAProds wrote on 12/7/2024, 10:37 PM

@Lee-Beck

Sorry, I answered you above, but because of the rules here, I now cannot add your name to my original post. 😏

johnebaker wrote on 12/8/2024, 3:26 AM

@Lee-Beck

. . . . I’m hoping that I can remake the DVDs to files that I could place on a USB drive. . . . .

This is possible:

From the DVDs you can copy the all the files from disk, to a folder, using a relevant name for the folder, to USB stick,.

If you have ISO images of the DVDs you can open them on your PC - right click, Open with, File Explorer. This will mount the ISO file as a disc drive to copy to USB

Remaking the videos in Movie Studio/Edit Pro or Video Pro X, burn to ISO you will get an ISO image file, however there will also be the disc files in a folder see image below which you can copy as above to USB drive.

Use VLC (free) or any other software player eg PowerDVD (purchase) that can play DVDs.

By using different folders, you can put muliple DVD's onto a single memory stick eg a 128GB stick will hold up to the equivalent of 25 DVD discs.

HTH

John EB
Forum Moderator