There are many ways to use the VOB files from DVDs you have created yourself. Often, you can just copy the VOB to your hard disk, and then put that VOB on the Vegas timeline. You do have to extract the audio, since Vegas doesn't read AC-3 files directly. Here are some links where this has been discussed before:

VOB files

Extracting Video from a DVD image

Smartripper and DVD Decrypter are usually used to "back up" commercial DVDs. You won't find this a very receptive forum for duscussing such tools, since most of the participants -- and the host, Sony -- make their living creating copyrighted material. If the DVD is one you have created yourself with Vegas and DVDA, you can usually just copy the files back to your hard disk and don't need Smartripper.

Thanks, but dragging the VOB into Vegas doesn't work. Yes it is a DVD I made myself. When I drag it into Vegas, it drags fine, but only does MAYBE half the video instead of the whole thing. So only a tiny bit comes out!

When I drag it into Vegas, it drags fine, but only does MAYBE half the video instead of the whole thing.

I wish I could help you on this problem. Many other people have reported this problem, but I've never encountered it myself. I've put VOB files on the timeline a bunch of times, and in fact have a 25 minute on on there right now (Vegas 5.0b). As I scrub the timeline, the preview does go blank for a few seconds, but if I play at normal speed, Vegas usually keeps up. Sometimes the display will pixelate briefly.

Since Vegas does not cut MPEG files (which is how the video is, of course, stored in the VOB), you'll have to recompress after you edit. Given this fact, you might, just for grins, putting the VOB file on the timeline, and then render it back out to a DV AVI file. Put that back on the timeline and see if it works. My theory (which I can't test because I can't repeat your problem) is that you have different versions of various codecs. This may impact the playback, but still may allow the file to be read in non-real time and then rendered out to an AVI.

I've used DVD2AVI software to do this, with good success. You can download it for free from
http://arbor.ee.ntu.edu.tw/~jackei/dvd2avi/

DVD2AVI doesn't really rip to AVI, it goes to D2V, which is only supported by TMPGENc...

When you say DVD you created yourself, was that with Vegas / DVDA or in one of those horrid DVD camcorders?
If the later, good luck!

I use the video splitter and video joiner tools at boilsoft.com, they are simple and effective ... it would be nice to see those functions integrated in Vegas 6, without the need for rendering ... btw any other good split/join tools out there?

There's also a nifty (and free) vob splitter tool called chopper, from www.digital-miner.com ... it's the only vob splitting tool I've found that works well, and it's a free utility.

Hey slightly OT, but a quick question re modifying commercial DVDs for one's own use...:

For commercial DVD movies I've bought, for my favorite movies I would like to create "best scenes" versions DVDs for my own personal use only, eg I take my favorite parts of a 2 hour movie and compile a 1 hour version or whatever... would that be ok as far as legal use would be concerned, since it would only be for my personal viewing etc? Anyone know legalities on doing that?

And on a related note (you can see where I'm headed with this), I'd like to create favorite movie scene hard drives connected together for the 'ultimate discless home theatre system", eg just raid together a bunch of 300gig drives with my favorite movies on them for personal home use only, is that legal/ok with the movie folks?

I know there's commercially available systems out there (saw on an airplane magazine - http://www.kaleidescape.com/ ? ), wondering if I could create something like that myself, ran via a laptop pc with thumbnails of movies on it, just click and play whichever of 400+ movies I want to view instantly, without shuffling silver discs in and out of a machine...

good article at:
http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/article.asp?section_id=7&article_id=569&page_number=1

thanks,

ken

Hacking the copy protection on any commercial DVD is illegal whether it's for personal use or not. This was what the whole 321 Studios lawsuit was about, and they lost bigtime. It's likely only an issue if you're caught, but the copy protection scheme is copyrighted in itself, and it's a violation of the DMCA laws to hack it.
but if it's just you at home....who's gonna know, right?

"DVD2AVI doesn't really rip to AVI, it goes to D2V, which is only supported by TMPGENc..."

Can't prove that by me. When I run it, I get a file with an .avi suffix that seems to work fine in Vegas. Haven't used it in a while, I must admit, so I don't remember if there are special settings or something....

I can go the route of capturing the DVD from my DVD player to my capture card but that's an obvious quality hit that I'd rather not do.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong but one would NOT lose any noticeable quality by doing this would they?
Randy

I use that method ALL the time, just do an analog capture of the DVD from a DVD player. From what I have found the quality is much better than wasting time ripping and trying to import VOB's into vegas which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, plus it usually saves a lot of time as well.

DVD2AVI makes a proxy file, there is a convertor that will convert it to you can use the proxy in VEGAS.

www.dvdhelp.com has full informaiton about how to do it.

Dave T2

Thanks, good insights .... it would be nice if Vegas6 would have the ability to edit compressed video clips better, be they mpg/vobs .. agree re seems hit n miss re some vobs edit ok, others don't... true re the personal use for dvds at home..

on a side note, I just finally got my 6x9' projection screen hooked up last night w/toshiba high-intensity projector, it's great watching dvd movies full screen w/klipsch surround speakers ... hassle is visually looking at 400+ dvd covers to figure out which dang movie to play ... and finding them if I do want to play them ...

ken

Sigh ...

I really hate to see people take the time -- to say nothing of enduring the quality hit -- of doing an analog transfer of a DVD file.

Here are various methods that work with Vegas:

1. Use TMPGEnc. File -> MPEG Tools. Click on the Multiplex tab. Set Type to "MPEG-2 Program (VBR)." Click on Add and add your first VOB file (you will have to tell TMPGEnc to show all file types). Once you click on OK, you will see a list of all the stuff in your VOB file. Delete everything except the video file. Select a location and file name for your output MPG file, and then click on Run. Repeat for each of your other VOB files. This goes faster if you specify a different physical disk for the output files than the disk holding the input files. The resulting MPEG-2 files can be put directly on the Vegas timeline. You will still need to convert the AC-3 files to WAV as described in the links in my first post above.

2. Use Womble's products. This is also described in the links in my post above. You can edit the VOB and AC-3 files directly, and no re-encoding is done. It is therefore VERY fast, and results in zero quality degradation.

3. Use Smartripper to demux. Since you use Smartripper, you can use it to demux. I don't use this product anymore, but I found an old version on my disk. On that version you click on the Stream Processing tab, and then "Demux to extra file." Do this only for the video file.

4. Use DVD Decrypter. You can do a similar operation to #3 above using the IFO mode.

I just did a test with a 25 minute 1 GByte VOB file and did the conversion in TMPGEnc. I put the resulting MPEG file on the Vegas 5.0b timeline, and it plays fine, although don't expect Vegas to repond instantly when you re-position the cursor. If you want normal, fast response, you should render the MPEG/WAV combination from the Vegas timeline to an AVI file, and then edit that. However, if all you need to do are a few simple cuts, then you can probably live with the sluggishness.