Cannot encode VOB to ffmpeg format ***UPDATED***

[pjfl29]

I have tried to look at all the post, but I have not found the same problem that I am having. So, here goes!

report:
Encoding started on Sun Jan 18 18:29:28 BRST 2009
FFmpeg version CVS, Copyright (c) 2000-2004 Fabrice Bellard
Mac OSX universal build for ffmpegX
libavutil version: 49.0.0
libavcodec version: 51.9.0
libavformat version: 50.4.0
Input #0, mpeg, from '/Users/username/Desktop/DVD_VOLUME1/VIDEO_TS/VTS011.VOB':
Duration: N/A, bitrate: N/A
No audio or video streams available

REPORT2 VOB TO DV ENCODE:
Encoding started on Sun Jan 18 20:19:59 BRST 2009
/Users/username/Desktop/DVD_VOLUME 30/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_1.VOB: Unknown format

Now I was able to encode using the default DivX mencoder, but anything else using ffmpeg just goes "ding" and there is no file.

I have tried to uninstall and reinstall. I have tried the Invert Mapping option but no go. I know that the VOB files are good, and they are all on the desktop.

Any suggestions?

For some reason iMovie will not import avi files.

Thanks in advance

[Case]

Is this problem for SOME vobs from a video-ts folder, or for ALL vobs from that video_ts folder, or for ALL vobs from EVERY video_ts folder? In other words, can you get it to work for some VOBs?

If it only failes for some VOBs, then you may try to fix these VOBs using MPEG Streamclip. Open the VOB in MPEG Streamclip, Fix timecode breaks when asked, Convert to MPEG. This should only change the container format, not the video or audio. (It should be almost as fast as a file copy, as the content is not re-encoded.)
Rename .mpeg to .mpg. Use the .mpg in ffmpegX to convert to DV or whatever you want.

(The above assumes a properly authored VIDEO_TS folder, not a badly ripped commercial DVD with all kinds of extra copy protection measures, designed to prevent exactly what you're doing. )

[pjfl29]

It has happened with all VOB files from different folders. What I have are recordings of my son's ultrasound and at the Dr. office they use direct DVD recording. However, I want to edit the video in iMovie, and to do so I need it to be in either .MP4 or .DV format.

So, I use MTR to create the VOB folders and then try to convert to DV or MP4. I did convert to AVI, which worked, and then convert the AVI to MP4 but the image came out very blurry.

The problem is when I use any ffmpegx codec. Mencoder works, but there are no mencoder for DV format.

I did recreate the VOB folder with MTR to make sure it was doing it right, but it still does not work.

I will give your idea a try, and post my results later.

Thanks,

[Case]

Direct DVD recording may author a disc slightly different than other authoring programs, which may cause problems for other apps (MTR) dealing with files from that disc. Not sure, as I've never had to work with such a disc.
The blurry image could be due to settings, or interlacing. It shouldn't have to be blurry. Hard to say without extensive source file properties (such as provided by MediaInfo Mac) or screenshots of the 'blurry' image.

I will give your idea a try, and post my results later.

Anything yet?

[takeTwo]

I agree with Case. Another tool for inspecting the video file is VideoSpec: http://laurent.ettouati.free.fr/english/index.html.

They claim

VideoSpec is an AppleScript studio app (Xcode 2.5 on Tiger) making use of MPlayer, FFmpeg, MediaInfo and qt_tools open source binaries to display detailed informations on video files.

I just noticed that it also makes use of MediaInfo. Anyways, it has a nice user interface and even suggests components that you may want to make the video QT compatible (such as Perian).

I'm not sure about this (not being fluent in iMovie et al.), but if the video is not compatible with QT (or QT with mpeg2 component), perhaps iMovie will spit it out. VideoSpec will display if the video container has QT compatibility or not (along with the QT component sites).