Getting video off DVD+VR disks

farss wrote on 2/28/2004, 2:08 AM
Anyone had any luck doing this?
Issue would seem to be that unless the disks are finalised the OS cannot even see any files on the disk. Presumably the 'finalise' process involves building the directory structure. I'd also add you cannot play the disks in a standard DVD player either until their finalised. Of course the downside to finalising is that as far as I know you cannot record anything else to them once you've done that.

I figure you'd need low level code to be able to read the files, i.e. bypassing windoz FHS to get at the raw data.

This isn't a show stopper, come Monday I can just pop these disks back into the camera and finalise them and then I should be able to get the files off them for further surgery but it does seem if the these DVD cameras become more popular it's going to become a common problem.

Comments

vonhosen wrote on 2/28/2004, 6:23 AM
Does this help ?
I haven't read it fully yet.....too busy

http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=101191
farss wrote on 2/28/2004, 12:29 PM
I'll give it a go, I've downloaded the Pegasys authoring app (fortunately they have a 30 day trial version available) but I have a horrible suspicion that unless the disk is authored I'm still not going to be able to do anything with it.
Fuzzy John wrote on 2/28/2004, 7:53 PM
farss, if I remember right, when I went thru the ordeal of getting my files off the Sony DCR-DVD300 I found out that the computer I used was able to read these mini DVDs after I installed Easy CD & DVD Creator. Actually the part that seemed to do the trick was Drag and Drop to Disc (DirectCD).

Hope this helps.
farss wrote on 3/1/2004, 4:19 AM
Well folks, here's where I've got to:

We 'finalized' the disk, now the PC can see the files and the thing seems to play OK with PowerDVD on the PC. So far so good.

So copied the files off the miniDVD into a folder on the PC and tried to make a copy using RecordNowDX, copied OK to a DVD-RW and it came up looking just the same on the DVD player and again this DVD will play OK on the PC using PowerDVD. So dropped it into my DVD player but every few seconds major freeze. The timing of the freeze is consistant but OK maybe it's just the media even thoug I use the same disk daily for doing test burns from DVDA!

So next I installed TMPGEnc DVD Author. Arcane to use but it let me drop the VOBs straight into new project, now this is looking promising. So create few menus and prepare and burn to same DVD-RW. Bung into player, menu looks OK and now plays vision just fine but a few seconds in audio drops out never to be seen or heard from again.

Not being one to give up I demux ac3 audio using DVD2AVI and copy and rename VOB to mpg and drop into Vegas TL. Now it gets freaky! Vegas thinks clip is 0:00:03:05 long but shows thumbnails from enitre clip and well yes it plays out only the first 3:05 of the video!

So as the last act of a desperate man I put the mpg file and ac3 file into a DVDA project and hit preview. Not unexpectedly the clip plays for...3:05.

So I go back to DVD2AVI, thinking I'll beat the bludger one way or another. Open up VOB and preview, plays out VERY fast but it's all there except I notice the timestamp never gets above 1:00. Anyway I try to save as uncompressed AVI, which works! But.... you guessed it, the AVI is 3:05 long!

So I've given up, it's got me beat. I'm certain there's a way to do this, well I know there is a way but it's horrid, play the thing out in a Panasonic STB DVD recorder via f/wire and capture as AVI into Vegas, Yuck!

It would seem that these cameras are recording a non standard mpg stream or at least one not according to the DVD Forum specs, the authored DVD will not even play in anything other than a PC based DVD player.

This is a real pity, I'd kind of wanted this camera to work out, pictures look OK but short of using Ulead MediaStudio I can see no way it's going to be anything other than MicroMV all over again.

All I can say is Sony 'left hand' needs to talk to Sony 'right hand' some time real soon. Lets face it, I think I'm a few rungs further up the ladder than the people this camera is going to appeal to and so far I'm going nowhere with it. Yes I know 3rd party apps may be able to handle it OK but I really think at the very least there should be a warning on the box the camera comes in.

JohnnyRoy wrote on 3/1/2004, 4:47 AM
> think I'm a few rungs further up the ladder than the people this camera is going to appeal to and so far I'm going nowhere with it

Actually, I would say that you’re absolutely the wrong target market for this product. The DVD camcorders are aimed at people who just want to shoot and view without editing. Just like the old VHS days. I agree with you there should be a warning on the box.

~jr
farss wrote on 3/1/2004, 1:29 PM
Believe me, I have no interest in this camera for my own use.
However Sony are selling it and the public are coming to people like myself and asking us to do something with footage shot with it.

What are we supposed to tell them?

Should we politely tell them they've bought a lemon?

If Sony are serious about this camera then this would seem a very appropriate forum for them to start filling in the people who have to deal with how it operates.

I do agree with you re the VHS comparison, but from what I can see so far at least in the VHS days you could put the tape in the VCR and it would play, so far with the DVDs from this camera that seems very hit and miss.