VOB files, MPEG and AVI

Richard Jones wrote on 11/22/2008, 5:27 AM

In his post of 3 November under the heading "Audio Gaps in Imported DVD," John Meyer gave some excellent advice about using (and how to use) DVD Shrink to import VOB files into Vegas (Thank you very much John - most helpful as always).

Many VOB files are in MPEG format which is difficult to edit in Vegas because of resource usage and it would seem to make sense to edit them in AVI. My questions are:-

1. Is conversion from MPEG to AVI a sensible proposition?

2. Would using a programme such as AVS Video Convertor from AVS4U.com (which is freeware) a good way to go about this? If not, any suggestions will be welcome.

One final question about using DVD Shrink if I may. When trying to Re-Author, the titlesets from a DVD sometimes show only the Main Movie and not the individual chapters within it (although Extras and Titles are shown separately). This means that the whole movie has to be imported rather than only those parts you might be interested in. Is there a work around for this?

Best Wishes,

Richard

Comments

johnmeyer wrote on 11/22/2008, 8:50 AM

Try this:

Using VFAPI and DGIndex to edit VOB/MPEG-2 in Vegas at full speed

FilmingPhotoGuy wrote on 11/22/2008, 9:35 AM

thanks John

you have mentioned this before but i missed the point " camcorder"
sometimes you have to tell me twice

gotta try this out

xfx "gate crashing

Richard Jones wrote on 11/23/2008, 3:31 AM

Thank you yet again John.

Richard

darkframe wrote on 11/23/2008, 4:04 AM

Hi,

>When trying to Re-Author, the titlesets from a DVD sometimes show only the Main Movie and not the individual chapters within it<

chapters on a DVD do not show up as single clips as there is no chapter marker or whatsoever within the VOBs. Where a chapter starts is laid down in the IFO which belongs to a certain title set. It's nothing more than a pointer.

In case a title set contains more than one title (or movie, in human language ;) ), this can be identified by either reading the relevant information from the IFO as well as by the video stream's IDs within the VOBs.

As chapters are nothing more than pointers but titles are different streams, identified by their ID, Shrink and other applications won't show you chapters as separate "clips".

Hope, that it's getting clearer now :)

Cheers

darkframe

Richard Jones wrote on 11/23/2008, 5:31 AM

Many thanks DarkFrame. A big help and light is beginning to dawn!

Best Wishes,

Richard

Richard Jones wrote on 11/24/2008, 2:06 AM

Sorry to revert to this but I've been looking closely at John Meyer's suggestions, including your previous posts on the subject. You really are extremely knowledgeable and most helpful and I hope I can impose on you and everyone else again by asking a follow up question..

John's approach involves two steps using DGIndex (by the way, they now charge for this) and VFAPIConv but I wonder if this can be done in a single step using something like the AVS Video Convertor tool fromAVS4U.com that I mentioned in my original post. Has anyone tried this programme? Or is there something better about ?

I suppose AviSynth might be an alternative but my search of the Web suggests that it's fairly complex and involves writing a script of some sort (and that's way beyond me I'm afraid).

Best Wishes,

Richard

darkframe wrote on 11/24/2008, 3:23 AM

Hi,

when I'm extracting from DVDs I normally use PgcDemux (freeware) which however is storing elementary streams (i.e. M2V for the video portion, MPA (MPEG audio), AC3 etc.) only. Well, those streams can be opened in Vegas for further treatment (except for AC3 as far as I know, but there was some way as well). By the way, PgcDemux will work with non-copy protected disks only.

Cheers

darkframe