Convert RatDVD back to DVD

Install RatDVD and launch RatDVD from the Start Menu (or wherever else) and open the .RatDVD file.

Content Selection

Generally I suggest to keep the full featured (rat)DVD. However, with RatDVD you can remove single titles, audio tracks and subtitles without loosing the navigation. RatDVD automatically adjusts the navigation as follows when a nonexistent item is selected.

You can do the following:

Removed title: Will directly jump the the end of the title and perform normal navigation
Removed subtitle: Instead of the removed subtitle the first available subtitle at the present location will be selected
Remove audio track: Instead of the removed audio track the first available subtitle at the present location will be selected

Removing titles and menus is done by deleting the corresponding checkbox in the tree-view. To remove audio tracks or subtitles you can set the radio buttons in the list view to "remove". For audio tracks (LPCM or AC-3 5.1) you have the additional option to convert it to AC-3 Virtual surround (recommended).

NOTE: By default RatDVD will transcode LPCM and Dolby AC-3 5.1 tracks to Dolby AC-3 Virtual Surround to save space without really noticeable loss of quality.

If the target is a single layer DVD (4,7 GB) there are (very rare) cases where the RatDVD program may have to compromise quality to achieve this size. In these cases you may want to remove audio tracks or menus to get the best possible video quality.

NOTE: For usual DVDs it is no problem to fit the complete rebuilt DVD on a single layer DVD+-R(W) .

Preview

When you are not sure which titles to keep and which to remove you can always preview a selected title by pressing the play button.

You can even do full screen preview with full featured playback and navigation (right mouse button menu).

Audio transcoding

Audio transcoding reduces the size of a typical 1GB Stereo LPCM audio track (93 min) or a typical 262 MB AC-3 5.1 audio track to about 131 MB AC3-VS by encoding the multi channel audio signal into a 2 channel matrixed virtual surround system with multiple virtual channels on AC-3 basis.

By keeping it in AC-3 the loss of quality is reduced to a minimum - try it yourself!

NOTE: My recommendation is always to use this setting since the quality is virtually not compromised but it makes a big difference in size.

Tagging

With tagging you can embed information about the DVD like title, actors, director, plot, DVD cover etc. inside the RatDVD file. You should always embed tagging information into untagged RatDVDs.

Click here for details on how to do this.

Starting the conversion

Basically you only have to select the target and click OK to start the process.

If you want to use some of the advanced features, read below about the details.

Target Settings:

You can specify to which folder the recreated DVD files are outputted.
If you have Nero installed you can additionally create an ISO image or write directly to DVD.

Options:

Select "Run convesion in low priority" if you plan to use the computer for something besides the transcoding. Has little impact on speed.
Select "Show preview pictures" if you are interested to preview while converting. Has little impact on speed.
Select "Shutdown computer when finished if you want your computer to shutdown after the conversion is done. E.g. if you run it over night.
Set custom sounds you want to play when conversion is done (successfull or failed).
Specify a command that is automatically executed after a successful conversion. The path/name of the created RatDVD is passed as parameter.

Burn Settings:

Set the volume label for the DVD/ISO image to be created
Set the burn speed to use
Set the book type to DVD-ROM (higher compatibility)
Enable high compatibility mode

Have fun using it! If you have more questions, check the FAQ ...