extracting jpg photos from VCD/.DAT files

[shreeit]

Any way to achieved reverse process to extract pictures from photo VCD
.DAT file. VCD contains photos and transition effect in between in .DAT format.

I am new to this forum, so if this is not proper place, please don't flame me.

Thanks,

shreeit

[Cornucopia]

Yes and no.

What you've got there in the .DAT (not a true file per se) is an MPEG stream with audio and video. No still pictures. At all.

Here is what you can do:

1. Extract the MPEG from the DAT (try VCDGear). Now you have *.mpg
2. Demux the MPEG into its component audio and video (try TMPGEnc). Now you have *.mp2 (audio) and *.m1v (video)
3. Open the *.m1v in an editor that supports MPEG1 (try VirtualDub).
4. Jump around to the areas where you have non-changing material (i.e. skip the transitions). When you're parked at a good pic, export that single frame to a file.
***Don't RE-compress to jpg, please. It's already been compressed at least once (more like 2 or 3 times) and another round of compression is just gonna gunk it up even more. Use png,tif,psd,bmp,etc.
5. Repeat #4 until you're done. *Make sure you don't de-interlace--you don't have to since VCD's aren't interlaced. If you tried, you'd lose 1/2 the vertical resolution--more blurry.

That's the best you can do.
Hope that helps,

Scott

P.s. If you make further VCD's, think ahead and put the source photos/jpgs in a PHOTOS folder in the ISO(Track1) section.


>>>>>>>>>>edit<<<<<<<<<<<<
I was thinking you were meaning the AVSEQ##.DAT tracks in the MPEGAV directory. It's possible you were meaning the ITEM####.DAT segments, which would could include still elements in the MPEG streams.

[Baldrick]

please don't cross post.