four .VOBs to V8

Randy Brown wrote on 8/27/2008, 9:39 AM
Hi guys,
I searched for this issue but can't find the answer so thanks in advance for your suggestion.
I have a client that wants me to make a looping DVD of 4 episodes of a TV show (they are a sponsor and have permission) to show at some convention of theirs.
I have no problem dragging the .vob to the timeline from Windows Explorer (it took me a while to realize this was the only way to do it) but I'm wondering if I will lose any quality rendering to mpeg again instead of capturing through VidCap as an .AVI first. Or maybe if I just pre-render to avi before mpeg?
Also, it is widescreen format. I've never rendered to widescreen format before so excuse my ignorance. I emailed them asking if it will display on a widescreen TV or regular 4:3 TV but haven't heard back.
If it will be a widescreen I'm guessing I should render as "DVDA NTSC widescreen video stream" and .ac3 audio. If it will be shown on a 4:3 TV should I render to what I usually do (DVDA NTSC video stream and ac3)?
Thanks again,
Randy
EDIT: I also just found out that the DVDs are split into two files I have to butt up to each other and there apears to be a few frames missing at that point...any thoughts?

Comments

johnmeyer wrote on 8/27/2008, 10:02 AM
Capturing a DVD by playing it and then capturing the analog output from the DVD player will always produce worse results.

1. You are already decoding (in the player) and then re-encoding (via whatever capture method you are using), so you have not avoided that step.

2. If you use Vegas 8, which the subject heading says you are, you should be able to "smart render" portions of the VOB that don't change. If Vegas won't do this, because of the VOB structure, you can use a tool like Womble to first strip the VOB of its complex structure and create a simple MPEG-2 file. This process will not change one pixel of the original MPEG-2 encode.

3. Any analog conversion involves loss, and if you are living in NTSC land, playing the DVD involves converting it into that wonderfully horrible convoluted analog mishmash, and then back again. If the reds end up looking even remotely similar to what you started with, then you are either a genius or very lucky.

4. It takes time to do the analog capture. By contrast, you can cut VOBs in a few minutes (if it is cuts-only) and be done with it.

I have done a dozen VOB projects in the past few days, and the only thing that has taken time is that the audio was screwed up and I have spent several hours in Sound Forge and Izotope RX trying to restore the audio. The video part of it took virtually zero time -- either capturing or outputting (not encoding, but I did not re-encode). The video is pixel-for-pixel the same as what I started with on the original DVD.
Randy Brown wrote on 8/27/2008, 11:49 AM
Wow John, lots of info there I didn't know (ie losing quality when capturing from DVD player).
I don't seem to have any problems with all 4 shows on the timeline except there are some jaggies when I preview. As soon as I pre-render to avi though it looks fine.
So, should I pre-render to avi or not before rendering to "DVDA NTSC widescreen video stream" and .ac3 audio?
Also, any ideas on the missing frames I mentioned?
Thanks for your patience John,
Randy
Laurence wrote on 8/27/2008, 3:12 PM
When I do this sort of thing, I go outside of Vegas and use MPEG Wizard from http://www.womble.com. The reason I do this is because it smart-renders the DVD compatible mpeg2 and thus avoids the quality issues you get when you rerender the video. The smart-rendered mpeg2 is only rerendered right at the edit points. The rest is exactly the same as it was before the edit.

MPEG Wizard comes bundled with another program called MPEG VCR. MPEG VCR has a multiplexing/demultiplexing feature. This is useful because it will let you use separate the MPEG2 video and the AC3 audio into two separate files like DVDA likes. In the VOB files both before and after the edits, the MPEG2 and AC3 audio are combined in the video clip, and DVDA doesn't know how to make use of the embedded AC3 audio.
cbrillow wrote on 8/27/2008, 6:42 PM
"In the VOB files both before and after the edits, the MPEG2 and AC3 audio are combined in the video clip, and DVDA doesn't know how to make use of the embedded AC3 audio."

I frequently use Womble's MPEG Video Wizard to excise commercials from programs recorded on my DVD recorder, and the resultant files are directly usable in DVDA. As has been stated, the edited file is written back without re-encoding, except where necessary, and the AC-3 audio is embedded along with the video.

DVDA will not recognize the audio if the file extension is .mpg, which is what Womble will name it by default. However, if you name or rename it "filename.vob", DVDA detects the audio stream and everthing works just fine. In order to add this .vob to your DVDA project, you'll have to specify "All Files" in the file open dialog box.

This is an issue acknowledged by tech support, who promised a fix, but it didn't show up in DVDA 5.
Laurence wrote on 8/27/2008, 9:54 PM
So I can just rename it VOB and access both the audio and video from the same file without demultiplexing? That's a whole lot easier than the way I do it. Thanks for the pointer.
Randy Brown wrote on 8/28/2008, 6:44 AM
DVDA will not recognize the audio if the file extension is .mpg, which is what Womble will name it by default. However, if you name or rename it "filename.vob", DVDA detects the audio stream and everthing works just fine. In order to add this .vob to your DVDA project, you'll have to specify "All Files" in the file open dialog box.

I didn't even think about bringing the .vobs directly into DVDA. There are no edits to be done so it seems I could just bring them all into DVDA and have them link to each other to get a looping DVD...right?
If I could do that then my only concern would be all of the VOBs are split (for the same show) and seem to be missing a few frames so there is a glitch at that point where they join.
I don't have time to learn Womble as I have another deadline I'm trying to meet on another project (when it rains it pours eh?) so I'm hoping someone will say "oh that's all you need to do? Well just..."
Thanks again,
Randy