PgcEdit home

The Swiss Army knife of DVD editing

Note that v9.4 is again totally free, although the donations are still much appreciated. Thanks to all users who have donated so far.

Table of contents
Introduction

PgcEdit is a DVD IFO and Menu editor designed to allow the modification of the navigation commands and parameters of an already authored DVD structure.
PgcEdit is also an excellent tool to learn how a DVD works, with its powerful Trace function.
PgcEdit v9 has a new function to automatically simplify the DVD, remove useless PGCs and commands, convert useless menus to dummies, etc... The resulting DVD is usually simpler to analyse and understand.
PgcEdit v9.4 has also a new powerful verifier feature that highlights in real time the most usual errors in the authoring of the DVD. (The full verifier feature is only available in the registered version of PgcEdit.)
The possibilities of PgcEdit are so numerous that it is simply impossible to list them all. Just try it, and see!
PgcEdit is free and open source (GPL license).
PgcEdit runs under all versions of Windows (including Vista), and with some limitations under Linux.
Current version

The current PgcEdit version is 9.5 (October 25, 2025)
What's new in PgcEdit v9.5? See the changelog here.
Documentation
- PgcEdit reference manual. The manual has been updated for PgcEdit 9.3 by blutach and Wombler!
  Note: the manual in Windows HTML Help form (.CHM file) is bundled with PgcEdit v9.4 zip archive for Windows. It is NOT included in the Linux archive!
  It is also highly recommended to download and install the Context Help plugin, maintained by M_Knox and available in the Plugins section. You need the latest version of the manual to use the Context Help plugin.
- Version history
- Screenshots: Main window, PGC parameters Editor, Trace mode, Menu editor, Preview
- Manuel de PgcEdit (Ancienne documentation en français, totalement obsolete. SVP, utilisez aussi le manuel anglais.)
Useful links:
- Tcl regular expressions (used by the find functions): See the official description, or this handy table.
- Tcl math functions (for the Tcl calculator/converter): See the 'expr' command official description.
- Glossary of DVD Terms.

Third party guides
Please note that some of these guides are slightly outdated. In case of problems, use the forums!
- In English:
  - How to use PgcEdit's Remapping and Restoring Functions by blutach, about the major new functions of PgcEdit v8.
  - How to use PgcEdit's Jump to PGC Upon DVD Insert Feature Courtesy of blutach.
  - Jeanl's Guides for PgcEdit Jumping straight to the movie or the menu (manual method), and Skipping annoying stuff (FBI warnings, previews, logos), using the new Trace mode of PgcEdit v0.4!
  - 2COOL's PgcEdit Guides New "Blanking a Cell with PgcEdit" guide, and "Removing Language Selection and Aspect Ratio Menus" updated (v3.0)!
  - 2COOL's Jump2PGC guide and his helper application jump2pgc.exe. Download guide and helper (with helper version 1.55)
  - There are also some 2COOL's movie specific ripping guides using PgcEdit on the Doom9 forum. See 2COOL's Cheat Sheets & Guides List.
  - Adding Back Original Menus to a DVD Shrink/Nero Recode Re-authored DVD with PgcEdit and VobBlanker Courtesy of blutach. (Definitive version.)
  - How to burn ISO images with PgcEdit ensuring 32k gaps between IFOs and BUPs Version 2, updated for PgcEdit v7.2! Courtesy of blutach. (Discussion thread at Doom9 here)
  - How to burn Double Layer Disks with PgcEdit Version 2, updated for PgcEdit v7.2! Courtesy of blutach. (Discussion thread at Doom9 here)
  - How to save even more Mb by just displaying the cast in the credits (as a still without audio) Courtesy of blutach.
  - How to use PgcEdit's Search & Replace Plugin Courtesy of blutach. (discussion thread)
  - Importing selfmade menus to episode DVDs done with DVD Shrink (using DVD-Lab Pro and PgcEdit) Courtesy of Chetwood. (Discussion thread)
  - Guide to use a custom made menu for episodes DVDs by Omarios. (Another method to import a selfmade menu, requiring no VM commands editing!)
  - Menuing DVD compilations easy, courtesy of Bjs.
  - Adding a still frame presentation menu on a DVDShrink reauthored DVD (Discussion thread) - Version française (texte simplifié seulement)
  - How to disable a menu button with PgcEdit's menu editor A clean animated flash guide by Rippraff.
  - Guide to Joining DVD's A draft guide by Zacoz on how to merge two DVDs while preserving menus with PgcEdit.
  - Change default audio streams with PgcEdit by UncasMS.
  - The VideoHelp's list of PgcEdit's guides is also handy.
  - A search for PgcEdit on Doom9 forum may be useful, too.
- In Czech:
  - Thanks to wencaS, you can find a lot of useful informations in Czech here, including guides, translations of the plugins, and much more!
- In Dutch:
  - DVD's backuppen; de beste manier [Deel 3] by DeeD2k2.
  - Een Play All script voor een Studio DVD-image met PgcEdit by Johan de Jong.
  - Switched Menu's met Pinacle Studio en PgcEdit by Johan de Jong.
- In Japanese:
  - PgcEdit FAQ
- In Spanish:
  - Tutorial de Reauthoría by David Star.
Installation of PgcEdit

PgcEdit is written in Tcl/Tk. Tcl/Tk is an interpreted scripting language. It is therefore necessary in theory to have a Tcl/Tk interpreter to use PgcEdit. Windows doesn't have such an interpreter natively.
PgcEdit.exe is an executable containing the Tcl/Tk interpreter and its libraries, as well as the scripts constituting the PgcEdit application. It is not an installer.
- Installation of PgcEdit.exe (under Windows)
  
  To install PgcEdit, simply copy PgcEdit.exe in a folder of your choice, such as "D:\Tools\PgcEdit\". Note that you need write access to the directory. Therefore, do NOT install PgcEdit in protected folders such as Program Files. (If you really want to install PgcEdit in "Program Files (x86)", remember to run PgcEdit with administrative privilege the first time, and each time it has been updated.)
  Then, launch PgcEdit.exe and see the 'Options/Install' menu: it allows you to automatically create the shortcut icons and the files associations.
  Note that the first time PgcEdit is run, it will create a "bin" directory in the same folder as PgcEdit.exe. Therefore, you need write permissions on the install folder, at least when PgcEdit is run for the first time, and when a new version is run for the first time.
  To install a new version, just overwrite PgcEdit.exe with the new file. The bin directory will be updated automatically the first time the new version is run.
  To uninstall PgcEdit, simply use the 'Options/Install/Uninstall PgcEdit' menu. This will remove the shortcuts, the files associations and the configuration files. Then, delete PgcEdit.exe and its installation folder.
  Note: On some foreign systems (for example Korean systems), the executable may not start when you double-click on the icon. To fix this problem, you have to put PgcEdit.exe in a path containing only standard ASCII characters.
  You can now also use the command line arguments or an environment variable to specify the character encoding scheme needed by your system. See the Command line arguments section below.
- Special note for Windows Vista and Windows 7 users
  
  Microsoft has released its very bad Vista operating system. Unfortunately, some guys want to use it!
  Although PgcEdit works relatively well under Vista, there is one thing you should know.
  - The "faster mkisofs.exe" used by the burn function of PgcEdit doesn't work under Vista. It is recommended to burn your DVD-Video files with ImgBurn, as it has now all features of the burn function of PgcEdit. However, if you still want to use PgcEdit to burn your DVDs, you have to replace mkisofs.exe with the original version requiring cygwin1.dll. That version of mkisofs is available in the ImgTool Classic (not ImgTool Burn!) package, available here. Be sure to change the path to mkisofs.exe in the burn setup dialogue, and leave sygwin1.dll in the same folder, as this DLL is required by this version of mkisofs.
  - Let me know if you find other problems with Vista!
- Installation of PgcEdit (under Linux)
  
  There is now a standalone executable for Linux. With this standalone, you don't need to have Tcl/Tk installed any more. You may copy the executable in a directory (preferably somewhere in your path), then do "chmod a+x PgcEdit" to make it executable.
  To use the preview, you have to install also Wine(hq).
  The Linux executable works well, but unfortunately, due to a bug in the recent Linux kernels, the preview doesn't work well under wine any more. It is therefore recommended to install wine and run the Windows executable of PgcEdit. In this case, the preview works as expected.
  You can also use the source files with the Tcl/Tk interpreter.
  Note that the first time PgcEdit is run, it will create a "bin" directory in the same folder as the executable. Therefore, you need write permissions on the install folder, at least when PgcEdit is run for the first time, and when a new version is run for the first time.
  To install a new version, just overwrite the executable with the new file. The bin directory will be updated automatically the first time the new version is run.
- Installation of PgcEdit under Mac OSX
  
  Due to the fact that PgcEdit is now nagware and not open source any more, and that I have never received any donation from Mac users, PgcEdit is not supported under Mac OSX any more.
  However, if you have an old version (pre-v9.0) and wish to run it, you can still download the MAC-OSX starter app here.
- Installation of the documentation (all platforms)
  The documentation files should be placed within a "doc" folder in the PgcEdit installation folder. This way, you will be able to launch the documentation from PgcEdit's Help -> Documentation menu. Alternatively, the CHM manual can also be put in the main PgcEdit installation folder.
  Under Windows, if a file called PgcEdit_Manual.chm is found in the doc folder, it is used.
  Under all platforms (including under Windows if the CHM file is not found), the file doc/PgcEdit_Manual.htm is used.
  If that file cannot be found, the file PgcEdit_Manual.txt is used instead. (This allows French users to place the old French doc file in the doc folder, and use it instead of the new English doc.)
  If PgcEdit cannot find one of these files, it will display the online HTML documentation.

Download PgcEdit

Windows
Download pgcedit_winexe.zip (standalone Windows executable, zipped).
Download the PgcEdit reference documentation (Windows .CHM help file, zipped).
Linux
Download the pgcedit standalone executable (not compressed), or, if you have Tcl/Tk 8.7 or more installed on your system, download the PgcEdit source files (zipped).
Remember that you have to install wine on your system, and that the preview doesn't work well any more. Therefore, you might prefer to use the Windows executable (PgcEdit.exe) under wine instead.
PgcEdit v8.6 under Mac OSX 10.3 or more
Download the PgcEdit starter application and the PgcEdit source files of v8.6, and put them in the starter folder.
Source code (mainly in Tcl/Tk)
PgcEdit source files
All versions folder
All versions (including the Windows and Linux executables, the old sources, the preview sources, alternate icon sets, doc files, etc..., zipped).
Alternate icons
Alternate set of icons for the toolbar, courtesy of Sweetness. Preview (screenshot)
To use them, download the sweetness_icons_2.zip file and extract the files in the "icons" subdirectory in the PgcEdit's installation folder. (You may have to create the icons directory.)
If you want to create your own set of icons, look at the INSTALL.txt file included in the archive. And please send them to my email address. I may distribute them here as well. Thanks in advance.
Miscellaneous
Download the Test-SPRM-7 tiny DVD, used to check if your player holds the PTT (chapter) number or the Program number in SPRM 7. (This test DVD is useful to setup the virtual player for Trace mode). PAL version NTSC version
Plugins
Since version 0.6.1, a plugin mechanism has been added to PgcEdit. This way, you may download the plugins you really need.
To use a plugin, download the ZIP archive, extract the tcl file, and put it in the "plugins" folder located in the PgcEdit's installation folder. If you have installed at least one plugin, a new Plugins menu will be available in PgcEdit.
- PGC2MKV v0.9 Exports the currently selected PGC to a standalone MKV video file. There are two modes of operation. You can export the MPEG2 video as it is, without re-encoding it. You can also re-encode it in h264 with x264. In re-encoding mode, it is possible to crop the video to remove the black bars, and to resize it to square pixel automatically.
  This plugin works only under Windows and requires PgcDemux, MakeMKV (from the mkvtoolnix package) and BDSup2Sub or SubtitleCreator.
  The plugin requires also x264 (32 or 64-bit) if you want to re-encode the video to h264. Take care, as some builds of x264 are not compatible with NTSC material. The 8-bit Komisar "clear" builds (XXXX.x86 or XXXX.x86_64) are recommended and work fine in NTSC. You can download them here.
  Before using the "Rip PGC to MKV" feature for the first time, be sure to use the Settings menu of the plugin to locate the necessary programs. You can use the same menu to download them, if you don't have them yet.
- Auto comment plugin v1.0 Adds some automatic comments in the PGC labels. Currently marks the PGCs without pre, post and cell commands as void.
- Celltimes plugin v1.0 Converts a Celltimes.txt file from frame numbers to time codes, or vice versa.
- DVDShrink plugin v2.8 Useful to improve the navigation capabilities of a DVD created by DVDShrink in reauthor mode. V2 has a new function, "Redo Authoring", to recreate completely the authoring from scratch. V2.5 has a totally new function to "Enhance and fix authoring" of the DVDShrink compilations in re-author mode, more standard compliant. You can now also use the arrow keys to skip to the previous or next title.
  This plugin has also a function to check if the DVDShrink option "Logical remapping of enabled streams" can be used safely for the current DVD.
- Play All PGC plugin v1.5 Unlike the "New 'Play All' PGC" function available in PgcEdit, this plugin scans the VOB files to find all VOB cells, and builds a new PGC referencing all available cells. It can also build a PGC containing only the VOB cells that are not referenced in the other PGCs, and find all unreferenced VOB cells. This plugin is handy to retrieve lost cells from the VOB files.
- PUO plugin v2.1 Function to import/export, set and clear the Prohibited User Operations. V2.0 has a new editor that allows you to set or clear any PUO of any cells in the VOBs.
  The import/export PUOs functions are useful if you want to keep the original PUOs of a DVD ripped by DVD-Fab Decrypter.
- Search and Replace plugin v2.6 Searches the VM command's [hexadecimal codes] of specific parts of the DVD using a regular expression and allows you to replace them with a command set of your choice. (This function is not easy to master, and should not be used by beginners. A simpler method has been implemented in PgcEdit v9.0. See Edit -> Dup And Increment.)
  Major update: in v2, the replace string can now contain complex mathematical expressions. A preset menu has been added, with a preset to convert the SetGPRMMD commands to standard Set commands. Since v2.6, it is possible to search in specific areas only.
  blutach's guide and its discussion thread.
- VOBU plugin v1.6 With this plugin, you can change the entry VOBU sector and the last VOBU sectors of any PGC. Handy to skip intros, logos, credits embedded in the main movie. Please note that this method is not standard compliant, and may fail with some players!
- Womble plugin v1.2 Creates .MBS and .MSL files for "Womble MPEG Video Wizard DVD". MBS files are necessary to import a titleset made of several VOBs in WMVW-DVD. MSL files are bookmark/chapter lists in the Womble format. This plugin is useless if you don't use WMVW.
- XiRON plugin v1.2 I wrote this plugin for me, to fix the numerous authoring errors of my cheap and very bad XiRON RW3HDD 80GB recorder. I will probably NOT continue to develop it, and I provide no support for this plugin. Use it at your own risk! This plugin is useless if you are not un unlucky owner of a XiRON recorder.
  Third party plugins
  
  As I'm not the author of the following plugins, please post your comments, suggestions and bug reports in their related discussion threads. Thanks!
  Also, the third party plugins hosted here might not be up to date. Please check the discussion threads from time to time to download the latest version.
- Context Help plugin v1.0 by Morris/Elysium (aka M_Knox).
  This HIGHLY RECOMMENDED plugin allows you to receive help based on what you're currently doing in PgcEdit. For example, when a dialog window pops up, just press F1 and, in most cases, you'll be redirected to the appropriate help page describing the dialog options.
  If you're getting "Page not found" errors when using PgcEdit_Manual.chm, please ensure that you have the latest version of it, which can be obtained here.
  Discussion thread and download link at Doom9
- Drag and Drop Support plugin v1.0 by Morris/Elysium (aka M_Knox).
  This plugin adds some drag-and-drop functionality to PgcEdit. You can drag a file from the shell and drop it on main PgcEdit window.
  Discussion thread and download link at Doom9
- Hex Bit Operands plugin v0.8 by Morris/Elysium (aka M_Knox).
  This excellent plugin modifies the way the commands containing bitwise operators are displayed by PgcEdit. There is an option to display the operand in hexadecimal instead of the standard decimal value, and an option to add a description of the affected bits.
  For example, the command " Set gprm(0) &=(and) 10 " can be displayed as " Set gprm(0) &=(and) 0x000A (preserve bits 1, 3) ". Really useful!
  Discussion thread and download link at Doom9
- Options Dialog plugin v1.0 by Morris/Elysium (aka M_Knox).
  This plugin displays all PgcEdit options in a single dialog window with tabs. That's the only purpose of this plugin.
  Discussion thread and download link at Doom9
- QuickTarget plugin v1.1.2 by Morris/Elysium (aka M_Knox).
  It simplifies changing some commands' target locations (GOTO, JUMPSS/CALLSS, JUMPTT, LINKPGCN) by point-and-click.
  Updated to v1.1 (March 23, 2010)
  Discussion thread and download link at Doom9
  All plugins
- Download all plugins in one zip file! Note that this package contains all plugins (including the plugins written by M_Knox) available at the time PgcEdit v9.4 has been released. It is a good idea to check the Plugins section to download the updated versions.
- All Plugins folder
- Deprecated plugins since version 9.0 of PgcEdit.
  The two plugins below are useless as their functionalities have been integrated in the main PgcEdit executable. Please remove them from your plugins folder to avoid conflicts with PgcEdit v9 or greater.
  - LU (menu Language Unit) plugin
  - Time Maps plugin
Third-party tool
- ChapterCommandsGenerator by wencaS.
  When the user interrupts the playback of the main movie and returns to the chapter menu, you may want to jump directly to the page containing the current chapter and highlight automatically the current chapter menu button.
  ChapterCommandsGenerator can generate the necessary commands for you, so that you just have to paste them in PgcEdit.
  Thanks to wencaS for this useful tool!
Command Line Arguments
Windows syntax:
PgcEdit [/E:encoding] ["dvd_folder_or_file_name"]

Linux syntax:
PgcEdit [-e:encoding] ["dvd_folder_or_file_name"]
or, if you use the source code and the Tcl/Tk interpreter:
wish PgcEdit.tcl [-e:encoding] ["dvd_folder_or_file_name"]
- /E=encoding or -e=encoding
  Specify the character encoding used by your system.
  On some foreign systems using accented characters, it might be necessary to specify this option if PgcEdit cannot handle the path and file names containing accented or special characters properly.
  Unfortunately, as far as I know, it is not possible to specify the encoding automatically. So, you will have to check which encoding is compatible with your system. The default encoding, cp1252, is suitable for all systems using only standard ASCII characters in the filenames.
  To display a list of all available encodings, use the /? or -h command line argument.
  Note: It is also possible to define the encoding through the global environment variable PGCEDIT_ENCODING.
  Since v9.3, it should not be necessary to specify the encoding any more.
- dvd_folder_or_file_name
  If another argument is provided, PgcEdit uses it to open a DVD automatically at startup.
  The argument must be the path of the root or the VIDEO_TS folder of a decrypted DVD, or one of the IFO, BUP or VOB file of the DVD.
- /? or -h
  Displays the command line syntax, and the list of all available character encoding schemes.
- Loading a scratchbook from the command line
  Since v9.0, it is possible to open a scratchbook from the command line. Just replace the "dvd_folder_or_file_name" argument in the syntax above with the path to the scratchbook.sbk file. The ".sbk" extension must be provided with the filename.
Please donate
To support future PgcEdit development, please make a donation. Thanks!
Contact

Please post your feedback, suggestions and bug reports on the Doom9 forum, in this thread. Thanks.
Old discussion threads: PgcEdit v 0.1, PgcEdit v 0.2, PgcEdit v 0.3, PgcEdit v 0.4, PgcEdit v 0.5, PgcEdit v 0.6.0 (and 0.6.1 beta), PgcEdit v 0.6.1 to 0.6.4, PgcEdit v 7, PgcEdit v 8. PgcEdit v 9.0 to 9.2.
You may also write (in French or English) to:

(Sorry, I had to hide the email address to avoid SPAM!)
NOTE: The old email addresses at tiscali.be and scarlet.be are no longer valid! Please use the address above.

Please use email only for messages not relevant to the forum, for bug reports and job opportunities. Use the forum to post DVD technical questions! I can't reply to all messages personally, and other users may benefit from your experience. Thanks.
If you need to submit a bug, please provide the following information:
- The version of PgcEdit you are using.
- The platform (for example Windows XP, Vista, Linux...) you are running PgcEdit on.
- If the program is crashing with an error message, the full text of this error message (you may have to click on the "Details >>" button of the error dialogue box to see and copy it).
- If you are in trouble with a specific DVD, please send me the original IFOs (the archive created with File -> Backups -> Create ZIP Backup).
- Try to describe exactly what you were doing when the problem occurred, and how to reproduce it.
Known Bugs (and Workarounds)
- If there are foreign characters in the directory names of the install path, PgcEdit may not start. However, since v9.3, this problem should be solved.
  Also, if you install external executables in a path with foreign characters, PgcEdit may not be able to launch them from its Tools menu.
  So, avoid foreign characters in the path of PgcEdit, of the tools you want to use via the Tool menu, and in the install path of ImgTool Classic, Daemon Tools and ImgBurn, or the burn function may fail.
  Since v8.6, it is possible to specify the character encoding used by your system via the command line or an environment variable. See the Command line arguments section above. This option should not be necessary any more since v9.3.
- Sometimes a button or menubutton (with drop-down options) doesn't work when you click it. This is probably a Tk bug, under Windows only.
  You may recover the usage of the button simply by clicking elsewhere on the window background or title bar.
  This problem has probably been fixed by the Tcl/Tk team, as it doesn't happen any more.
- PgcEdit v9.3 or above doesn't run any more under Windows 95, 98 and Millennium, as the new version of Tcl/Tk uses system functions not available on those platforms. Sorry!
- There are some minor problems under Windows Vista . See the note for Vista users in the installation section above.
- Under recent Linux systems, the preview doesn't work any more due to a bug in the newest Linux kernels causing some incompatibilities with wine.
  Solution: Install wine (necessary any way to use the preview), and run the Windows executable. As a benefit, you will have some options not available in the Linux version.
Recommended programs

All the tools listed here are free, and most of them are better than the commercial equivalents! Thanks to the freeware community!
- Essential tools
  - DVD Decrypter, by Lightning UK! Though discontinued, it is still the best ripper around. However, it cannot process some of the recently protected DVDs.
  - VobBlanker, by Jsoto. Handy to remove unwanted material from your DVD.
  - MenuShrink, by Jeanl. Use it to convert your DVD menus to still frames, and regain disc space.
  - DVD Shrink (download link) Still the best DVD compressor around!
  - DVDSubEdit, by Jeanl. Modify your subtitles without having to demux and remux the VOB files!
  - FixVTS, by Jeanl. Use it to normalize a badly authored VOB or DVD. This is an essential tool to use with PgcEdit!
  - ImgBurn, by Lightning UK! The best ISO burning tool! Needed to burn a DVD with PgcEdit.
- Useful tools
  - PGCDemux, by Jsoto. The best DVD demultiplexer!
  - Muxman, by Mpucoder. The best DVD multiplexer!
  - DVDStyler, by Alex Thüfring. To create your own menus.
  - IfoEdit and VobEdit, by Derrow. Powerful IFO and VOB monitors, now discontinued. Not for beginners!

Have fun!
r0lZ

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The Swiss Army knife of DVD editing

Table of contents

Introduction

Current version

Documentation

Useful links:

Third party guides

Installation of PgcEdit

Installation of PgcEdit.exe (under Windows)

Special note for Windows Vista and Windows 7 users

Installation of PgcEdit (under Linux)

Installation of PgcEdit under Mac OSX

Installation of the documentation (all platforms)

Download PgcEdit

Windows

Linux

PgcEdit v8.6 under Mac OSX 10.3 or more

Source code (mainly in Tcl/Tk)

All versions folder

Alternate icons

Miscellaneous

Plugins

Third party plugins

All plugins

Deprecated plugins since version 9.0 of PgcEdit.

Third-party tool

Command Line Arguments

Please donate

Contact

Known Bugs (and Workarounds)

Recommended programs

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