Do you have DivX or Xvid codecs installed on your machine? If so use those, set to highest bit rate. Is the vob 3 channel audio or 6 then demux to ac3 then use besweet to get multiple wavs.

Hunter
spam guard on
DVDesigns@SPAMcharter.net if ya need more help

Are you sure it's not just interlacing? You say films are perfect, and those are mostly non-interlaced.

Thanks to all who took time to respond. I've found out what the problem was. It was just a matter of pan and crop thing on Vegas timeline. Can u all believe it? Well, guess I gave one more step into perfection.
Thanks again.

I just started playing with DVD2AVI last weekend and ran into a similar problem upon rendering. The problem went away when I turned on the "reduce interlace flicker" switch.

It only seems to affect film-mode DVD data; I tried it on a DVD I created myself from DV source and the glitches didn't happen.

I would recommend just using DVD2AVI to extract the audio track. Don't save an AVI file, but instead save a project file (which you will throw away). Then, put the VOB file directly on the timeline, and put the WAV file underneath, and render out to an AVI file from Vegas, and edit that.

More information in these links:

VOB files

Extracting Video from a DVD image

Thanks to johnmeyer and all the other users who took time to respond. The problem seems to be more complex and I guess I didn't make myself clear. Let's see it:

1.When the VOB file is VIDEO (not film) I got better results using TMPGENC>MPEG TOOLS>DE-MULTIPLEX>MULTIPLEX (RESULT = MPEG FILE)>VEGAS TIMELINE (EDIT THE MPEG FILE - IT WORKS :)>PAN n'CROP>MAINTAIN ASPECT RATIO n' STRETCH TO FILL FRAME (BOTH CHECKED)>RIGHT CLICK - MATCH OUTPUT ASPECT.
(this solves any problem related to blurred files or "kicking"....) - excellent quality.

2.When the VOB is MOVIE I use DVD2AVI to directly save as AVI. The quality is the same as the one from the process described by johnmeyer:
"Don't save an AVI file, but instead save a project file (which you will throw away). Then, put the VOB file directly on the timeline, and put the WAV file underneath, and render out to an AVI file from Vegas, and edit that."

It doesn't matter what way I choose, the final result is an excellent avi file, but as soon as I edit the file and re-render again as an MPEG2 file (intended for dvd burning), "and preview the MPEG file with Power DVD) EVERYTIME I GET BRIGHT SUBJECTS ON THE SCREEN, THE POOR QUALITY IS OBVIOUS (IT SEEMS VIDEO IS FULL OF MOVING LAYERS). That makes me think of 2 possibilities:

1.the problem might be previewing the files with power dvd;
2.deleting all the avi files from Vegas timeline and redo the job following TMPGENC way.

I'd really appreciate some more help please.
thanks in advance.

Sorry to come to this so late in the day.
Firstly as you probably already know trying to go back from mpeg-2 to avi isn't going to give the best result, period. How you extract the mpeg-2 vision and audio streasm should have zero effect on quality. No data processing should be being done just sequential blocks of data being sorted into seperate files.

Now DVDs may be encoded as PAL, NTSC or as 24p. The latter is quite likely if they're Hollywood DVDs. Unless the header data is being preserved during extraction Vegas would have no way of knowing for example that the mpeg stream is 24p. If I'm right that would certainly explain the 'kick'.

I'd suggest putting a patch over one eye, a parrot on the shoulder and a trip over to vcdhelp.com to see if you can find some explainations over there. I've had no trouble using DVD2AVI to pull back material from a DVD I'd burnt. I then had to transcode from PAL to NTSC and re-encode back to mpeg to make a NTSC DVD from a PAL one. Damn clients! Results were acceptable, audio was the most importatnt bit and that wasn't re-encoded so it was fine.

You might need to somehow force Vegas to know that the source is 24p and have it apply pulldown to get it back to NSTC. If you're working in PAL, don't know what to do. I just don't know what Vegas would do if you dropped 24p material into a 50i PAL project without it knowing what the source was.

Other alternative might be to use an mpeg editor such as ULead MediaStudio Pro. I've tried it and it is SLOW but if you only need to make small changes might be the go. I'd also have a deeper look into the TNPGEnc toolset. I know it's arcane at times but burried in it are some real gems.

Thanks farss, for taking time to respond. Is there any place around here I can post the picture? That would make you see what's happening. Please reply sending a valid e-mail or site where I can upload a pic taken from that file.
:)
thanks, as always!

PS: we can find many parrots around here where I live, so there wouldn't be any problem. The biggest problem is to find a good boat!

You could email me at:

farss|at|optusnet|dot|com|dot|au

have cable so big files OK

If the VOB is MOVIE ... It doesn't matter what way I choose ... EVERYTIME I GET BRIGHT SUBJECTS ON THE SCREEN, THE POOR QUALITY IS OBVIOUS (IT SEEMS VIDEO IS FULL OF MOVING LAYERS).

Encoding telecinded video using MPEG algorithms can produce lousy video. In my experience, you must first do inverse telecine. I used to do this back when I did SVCDs, and the differences between doing it, and leaving the video alone were substantial.

I don't know whether the inverse telecine function in Vegas 5 could be used. I did it back then using the Inverse Telecine feature found in TMPGEnc's "Advance" tab.

Please copy and paste into ie. address bar:

http://www.dvdrhelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=218501

I've uploaded a pic there (only for demonstration purposes) that clearly shows the problem.

Hi john, I've got TMPGENC Plus. Does that help? Can u please tell me which steps do I have to follow to do this?
Let's start with: VOB file>?

Thanks.... :)

I looked at the pic, but didn't see what you describe. I did notice that the picture showed evidence of having been downsampled to a lower res color space (like 16-bit or 8-bit, rather than 32-bit).

Yup. What those arrows point to is definately banding caused by reduced color depth. Some step along the way isn't using full 24/32 bit color, or there is a compression step somewhere that is using too high a ratio and forcing areas to solid colors rather than gradients. I'm gonna guess the first option though because most video compression schemes usually show artifacts first before banding.

Hi john, can you please tell me how do I fix this? I'm currently trying to use TMPGEN to encode that avi to mpeg2 doing inverse telecine at the same time - 2 hours for some seconds...there must be somenthign wrong around here.
I'd really appreciate your help.

PS: where do I find these config. options? 32, 16 bits? You know, the more I study, the more I get lost.....

Thanks Kelly (I guess you remember me). Wanna know what I did?
1.DVD2AVI>Save directly as AVI or SAVE project as (to use a fake avi with vfapi)....here both ways work perfectly.
2.Encode the AVI file as MPEG (DVDA NTSC video stream).

Since I'm not a video professional, could you please tell me if I have to configure some advanced option when encoding from AVI to MPEG? I've fond out that when I open this AVI file on Vegas timeline, left click on it, properties, Media Guide says: 1,000 square. Do I have to change this or something else as Vegas> File> Properties> set to NTSC 24 or whatever....I'm getting crazy)
******
Another way = same result (Using TMPGENC to Demiultiplex the VOB to m2v and then Multiplex to MPEG2) - same banding.

What can I do? There must be a solution to fix this.

thanks to all!

OK,
I've looked at the pic and I SUSPECT it's in the original mpeg encode. I've had the same thing happen with noisy video. The encoder has run out of bandwidth so it stopped encoding the noise. The result was blacks with noise that froze, probably for the duration of the GOP.

I could be wrong, this may not be the same problem but that frames looks like it would have had lots of fine detail and motion. Also you will have a sampling issue and not much you can do about it I suspect, DVDs are good for 4:2:2, DV only 4:2:0 or 4:1:1.

If those patches look 'frozen' for a sequence of frames then I'd say it's in the DVD. You should check the DVD itself very carefully before wasting time on it. If it's in the DVD then I doubt there's much you can do about it. In anycase trying to fix it if that's the issue is a very different exercise.

Bob.

P.S.Who'se Olivier?

Olivier? I'm sorry, that's Olivia Newton-John. Sorry for that. Listen, I don't think the problem is with the dvd itself because other VOB files from other DVDs have shown almost (almost!) the same thing.
So what can we do about that? :)
thanks

I really think you need to spend some time making 110% certain it isn't in the original DVDs!

Can you verify just what you're seeing happen in the AVIs?
You previously mentioned something about a "kick", does it look like an area of the frame freezes?

I know this is difficult but you need to work through these issues to workout what's going wrong first, then see if you can fix it otherwise all you'll get is a lot of people throwing ideas around, maybe one of them will fix it, maybe none of them will. If you knwo whats going on it's one hell of a lot easier trying to fix it.

Would you all do me a favor again please?
Just take a look at:
http://www.dvdrhelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=892311#892311

I've posted a pic there. It's part of the same final MPEG file, but back on Vegas timeline, this part of the "movie" was just a jpeg file (so, nothing to do with VOB to AVi or whatever). It makes me think that the problem is with the MPEG encoding phase. "I guess" from my tests, the same thing happens with Vegas MC encoder or TMPGENC. WHAT CAN I DO FOLKS?
THANKS IN ADVANCE.

Thanks again farss, I do agree with you. Maybe it's something easy.....a piece of cake...we just have to find it out!

About those kicks: they were another problem (VOB [video, not movie]>AVI>MPEG = kicks). It worked out this way: VOB>TMPGENC>MPEGTOOLS>DE-MULTIPLEX>MULTIPLEX>OPEN MPEG ON VEGAS>EDIT MPEG [YES! :)]>RE-RENDER AS MPEG (PAN/CROP>CLICK>MATCH OUTPUT ASPECT) DONE!.

YOUR QUESTION:Can you verify just what you're seeing happen in the AVIs?
YEs, I can. AVIs are perfect. The problem happens when I re-render the AVI as MPEG files what makes think of the MPEG encoding phase. Did you take a look at one of my last posts? I'll send you a pic from the same final MPEG file (but this part of the "movie", back on Vegas timeline, was just a JPEG file - so nothing to do with VBO to AVi or to MPEG or whatever. You'll see the same "banding" what makes me think again there must be something wrong with the MPEG encoding process.

Just for comparison's sake, you could try playing the DVD and copying to DV via s-video & stereo audio, or capturing straight into Vegas.

Just five minutes would tell whether this might be a worthwhile alternative method.