Problem Importing from DVD recorder disk.

farss wrote on 6/30/2011, 5:41 AM

The DVD has only one VOB on it.
Playing that VOB in VLC, all 10 mins of it plays out fine.

Renaming that to .mpg and droping it onto the T/L gives me a video 15 secs long. Oddly enough if I persist in replaying it from different points on the T/L I can eventually "see" all of the 10 minutes that it actually is.
Loading the renamed VOB into Ppro CS3 I get all the vision but no audio.
Back to Vegas and trying Import DVD Camcorder disk Vegas (v9 or V10) creates 3 mpg files that don't join properly on the T/L.
I've tried DVD Shrink'ing the disk but get the same outcomes even after forcing Shrink to restream it.
I'm out of ideas apart from playing the disk in a DVD player and capturing the output but the content is already pretty bad and I don't want to do anymore harm to it than necessary.
Anyone else found a tool that'll fix what should be a simple to fix problem.
As always, thanks in advance.

Bob.

Comments

Former user wrote on 6/30/2011, 5:45 AM

TMPGEnc MPEG editor is great for this. It rips one MPEG file from a DVD and you can make it create an MPEG audio, WAV audio or keep the AC3. I use it all of the time.

Dave T2

craftech wrote on 6/30/2011, 5:54 AM

I haven't tried this tool Bob, but take a look at FixVTS, then DVD Shrink again.

Did you use DVD Shrink to ReAuthor?

John

PeterDuke wrote on 6/30/2011, 7:41 AM

I had a problem like this but now forget the details. What I did to get around it was to concatenate the small VTS_01_0.VOB file in front of the main VTS_01_1.VOB file and edit away the unwanted image it contained (menu background I think). Do you have a small VTS_01_0.VOB file that you have ignored?

farss wrote on 6/30/2011, 7:46 AM

DaveT2,
It's been years since I've used TMPEnc, I think I still have a license around somewhere. Might be time to dust it off.

John,
Yes, I ReAuthored. I'll try FixVTS but it seems designed to fix a different problem. DVD Shrink can open the DVD just fine.

The problem really is that Vegas is reading something from the file and getting the wrong answer. Media Properties reports it as 10 seconds long and clearly it isn't. I've had this problem with Vegas several times over the years and it'd be an improvement if Vegas had a mechanism that'd let the user edit or over ride the Media Properties.

Bob.

PeterDuke wrote on 6/30/2011, 7:46 AM

Have you tried passing the VOB or renamed MPG file through VideoReDo? (Don't do any trimming, and it will offer to just remux the video for you.)

farss wrote on 6/30/2011, 8:01 AM

Peter,
thanks for the tips, I'll try them in the AM.

Bob.

musicvid10 wrote on 6/30/2011, 9:26 AM

"(Don't do any trimming, and it will offer to just remux the video for you.)"

Using the Quickstream Fix function in VideoRedo will take care of any bad indices, which may be the source of your issues.

Steve Mann wrote on 6/30/2011, 11:39 AM

Did I miss something? Did you try Vegas Import Media from DVD?

johnmeyer wrote on 6/30/2011, 11:54 AM

Search in this forum on my user name and "VOB" and you'll find dozens of posts about how to deal with this. It is a common problem. Many times the video can be just dropped on the timeline and it works, and other times it gets truncated to about 15 seconds. Here is a semi-exhaustive list of different approaches to dealing with this problem, starting with the easiest to do.

1. Use the DVD import feature in Vegas, as Steve just mentioned. However, I find that this often does not work.

2. Rename the VOB file extension to MPG. I never thought this really worked, but I was helping a guy five days ago over the phone, and I really was in a hurry to get on to something else, so I told him to just rename the file and drop it on the timeline. It worked immediately.

3. Use DVD Decrypter or DVD Shrink to copy the DVD from disc to hard drive. Make sure to first set the program to copy the multiple VOB files into a single VOB file. This usually doesn't cure the truncation issue, but is does cure the other problem you will have, namely the discontinuity (both video and audio) at the boundary between VOB files.

4. Purchase Womble MPEG-VCR or VideoRedo (I forget who makes this). Either one will take the VOB file and create a standard MPEG-2 file that Vegas will play. The first three options above often don't work. By contrast, this almost always works. I use Womble. The price is only $19.

5. Use DGIndex and VFAPIConv to frameserve the VOB (created in #3 above) into Vegas. This always works, but is very tricky to set up and use. If you are interested, I posted a "quick & dirty" tutorial on my Youtube page (search for johnmeyer77) on how to do this.

JJKizak wrote on 6/30/2011, 1:55 PM

It's time Vegas fixed this thing. You can either import or not. This has been going on for as long as I can remember.
JJK

craftech wrote on 6/30/2011, 1:58 PM

It's time Vegas fixed this thing. You can either import or not. This has been going on for as long as I can remember.
=================
Add it to the list. If it's not a new bell or whistle, they never seem interested.

John

Steve Mann wrote on 6/30/2011, 2:11 PM

"It's time Vegas fixed this thing. You can either import or not. This has been going on for as long as I can remember."

There are loads of different ways a program can put data on a DVD that still plays in a DVD player even if it isn't strictly DVD compliant. Just as MPEG is just a container, so, too is the DVD.Expecting Sony to fix every non-compliant DVD is simply unrealistic.

farss wrote on 6/30/2011, 5:42 PM

Thanks to everyone for their input. Oddly enough in part the inspiration for this "fix" came from the VideoReDo FAQs.

All you need is Vegas.

1) Use Vegas's Import DVD Camcorder tool.
2) This may split one VOB into several mpg files and when put onto the Vegas T/L there will be gaps. Fix this as follows.
2a) To make life easy rename the mpg files Vegas created to something like 1.mpg, 2.mpg etc.
2b) Start>Run>cmd to get to the DOS command line.
2c) Navigate to the folder containing the mpg file and use DOS Copy to combine them into a new file e.g.

Copy /b 1.mpg+2.mpg+3.mpg all.mpg

The "/b" switch is vital and be careful with the spaces.

3) Use VLC to play and check your merged file.
4) Start Vegas.
5) Do NOT attempt to drag the combined mpg file onto the T/L from Vegas's own Explorer window. Vegas may well crash or behave badly. Instead drag and drop the file from the Windows Explorer onto the T/L.

I hope this helps someone.

Bob.

ottor wrote on 6/30/2011, 6:36 PM

Thanks for the tips Bob.

I normally cave in and use Cinematize on a Mac to import those discs.

otto

JJKizak wrote on 7/1/2011, 4:37 AM

Steve Mann:
Perhaps Sony could add something to the menu when trying to import DVDs saying "The DVD you are attempting to import is outside the parameters of this application".
JJK

Steve Mann wrote on 7/1/2011, 6:48 AM

It may *look* like a DVD to you, but how is Vegas to know that it isn't a data disk?

Multitech wrote on 7/1/2011, 3:30 PM

Does the DVD also have .IFO files on it? You can open them in vegas. In vegas you will need to tell it to show all files in the files of type drop down box. Then select the relevant .IFO usually VTS_01_0.IFO that is related to the .vob(s). I have found vegas wont correctly import some .vobs, but the .ifo works great. You may have to give vegas a few seconds when you select the .ifo it tends to hang for a few seconds as it reads the file. It also works much faster if you copy the disc to the hard drive instead of reading from the DVD.

If that fails, try opening the .vob in VirtualDub and export an uncompressed .avi

TonyRony wrote on 7/6/2012, 12:13 AM

Bob,

I understand the syntax for the DOS commands you suggested, but that's not exactly what I'm writing about. I'm just wondering how you figured out that concatenating the files like that would work. I did a test and sure enough it worked just great.

Naturally, renumbering the MPG files is a small pain, but the results seemed perfect. It's hard to argue with results that are perfect!

Thanks very much!

Tony

richard-amirault wrote on 7/7/2012, 9:10 AM

Naturally, renumbering the MPG files is a small pain, but the results seemed perfect. It's hard to argue with results that are perfect!

No renumbering necessary. As mentioned previously, Vegas can "open" the .IFO file and the video is imported to the timeline without any breaks.

See: http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=817586&Replies=7

TonyRony wrote on 7/9/2012, 9:00 AM

Thank you very much. I will have to be looking into this further as I see these steps provide a solution.

Thanks again and good luck to you!

Tony

TonyRony wrote on 7/10/2012, 3:44 PM

BrighterSide,

In addition to saying thanks again, I had a general comment about Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 11, which is the program I've been using lately.

If Sony has a reason -- technical or marketing-related -- for not accommodating the VOB files directly, they're within their right. However, instead of "burping" and displaying just a tiny fraction of the VOB file you're attempting to add to the timeline, it seems it would be better for a message to be displayed so users won't be left wondering why their addition to the timeline worked improperly.

Before reading your messages and other posts like yours, the reason I suspected there was a fix for the VOB issue came from using Serif MoviePlus, a less-costly, less-powerful alternative to Sony Vegas. I've had the Serif product for a few months, but I just don't have "the stomach" or the time I'd need to learn another video editor right now.

But here's what I learned from using the Serif product: As I imported a never-encrypted VOB (from a DVD I recorded from TV), as I try to add the VOB to the Serif timeline, a message is displayed: "Some of the files you're importing are MPG files. They may need to be indexed to allow for accurate seeking and length detection," and it gives you the option to index the VOBs or not.

I am NOT trying to disparage Sony; I cannot do better. However, instead of leaving us wondering what's going on, since many people seem to be trying to add VOBs to their Vegas HD Platinum timeline, the least they can do is let us know they don't support the operation we're trying to perform. Is that not reasonable?

Well, as I said, I'm not trying to disparage Sony or their products, but if they'd at least tell us we're doing something wrong, it seems that would help a great, great deal.

Thanks again, BrighterSide, and have a good one.