Can't convert Sony's Camcorders' VOB's into MPG files

[Zjaaspoer]

(Sorry for the long post. I’ve been searching for 2,5 weeks now and haven’t found anything yet. It’s quite a specific problem, therefore the long post)

Hi!

I’m totally new here at this board but I’m quite experienced with video editing. I’ve been making small movies for a few years now using the newest adobe software and a digital JVC camera. But here’s my problem.

Last December I went snowboarding with a new camera, the Sony DCR-DVD200e, because I thought it was interesting that this recorder saved it’s material on a 8cm DVD and thought it would be easy… Or so I thought…

After having filmed about 2 ½ hours of film and came back home, I discovered that the Sony camera didn’t have a FireWire connection for capturing the DV content (afterwards I realized this was logical because of the coding in mpeg2 on the DVD’s). It did have a USB 2.0 connection but this only allowed the capture of half the resolution. So I needed to get the material directly from the DVD. This is when the sh*t hit the fan.

As the material was already coded in mpeg2 format on the DVD I didn’t want to recode it because it would mean data loss. So I needed to convert the VOB files to MPG files (without recoding preferably). I found a lot of tools, namely on this site, that could do this operation. I think I tried over 25 (!) different tools, none of which gave the required result.

First of all the symptoms: Almost all the programs were able to read the VOB files. Only some of them (e.g. VirtualDub mpeg edition) could then display the whole movie in the preview window correctly. The fast majority however only displayed between the first 8 and the first 20 seconds (depending on the file). And with every program, when I saved the movie to a MPG file, only the same amount of film was saved. Looking at the produces file size of the MPG file I could see that some programs (mpeg-vcr) really only had the (lets say in this case) 10 seconds (a few MB file) while others did have all the material in it (150+ MB for a few minutes). In the latter case, the time bar in e.g. WMP would come to its end after the 10 seconds, but the movie would be playing on in the window (given that I didn’t touch the time bar until then). If I would then move the timebar I would see arbitrary parts of the whole movie flash by. If I then release it it froze and refused to play further.

I’ve heard some people say it’s probably the fault of the proprietary mpeg2 codec from Sony in which the video is encoded. It seems that in most cases the video gets converted in a whole, but the timeframe and time bar information gets f*cked up.

I hope my video isn’t lost and you guys can help me convert the files into usable mpeg2 files, which I can edit in Premiere Pro 1.5.

Any help will be HIGHLY appreciated!

[canadateck]

What i would do is rip the DVD with DVD Decrypter , Into one big file, In the settings make sure to select do not split file,Or somthing to that effect,Then Demux the Audio and video,then Mux it back together,then you will have One Mpg2 file. You can use Tmpgenc to do the de-muxing and muxing and its free. If you need to know how let me know,or somone may just post it,but there are many guides on how to do it.

[BJ_M]

that write on disk format should be banned and destroyed ..

you may have to use V-dub and resave out to huffyuv or DV and use that file ... its the simple solution ..

the time stamps on those files are all wacky .. maybe you can try to reset the time stamps (restream)

[Zjaaspoer]

WOW guys, thnx a LOT!!! It worked out for me thanx to you. What I did was rip de DVD with DVD Decrypter (I'm not sure if this made any difference compared with just copying the contents of the DVD). Then I used TMPGenc DVD Author to convert the vob files to mpg files (which were messed up). I de-multiplexed these files with TMPGenc Plus. On the m2v files I used ReStream to delete all the timecodes. Then I just needed to multiplex the files back together and I had a working mpg file without the above mentioned problems!

Damn, been looking for weeks for the answer on the internet, even had Sony on the line and you guys solved it within 4 MINUTES! This Newbie already loves this board!

Only I’ve run into a new (less problematic) question, I’ve posted it here https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1162197#1162197

[ivory2005]

Hello:

I'm also new to the board and have a similar problem. Mine is with the DVD from a Hitachi DVDCam. I just returned from vacation and "finalized" the miniDVD in the camera and now want to edit the footage. However, I can's seem to get the conversion. Will what you did with the Sony work in this case? The files on my miniDVD are .VOB.

Thanks

[Zjaaspoer]

Hello:

I'm also new to the board and have a similar problem. Mine is with the DVD from a Hitachi DVDCam. I just returned from vacation and "finalized" the miniDVD in the camera and now want to edit the footage. However, I can's seem to get the conversion. Will what you did with the Sony work in this case? The files on my miniDVD are .VOB.

Thanks

Hey Ivory2005,

Here's what I did. First I must note is that I experienced quite some quality loss because of the many conversions, but it was the only way I found I could get the files working in Adobe Premiere Pro.

I copied the VOB files to my HD, then I used TMPGenc DVD Author to extract mpg files from the vob files (these were messed up because of the wrong timecoding). Then I used TMPGenc Plus to demultiplex (seperate the audio (ac3) from the video (m2v)).

Then I used ReStream to reset the time information in the m2v file and used TMPGenc Plus to multiplex (combine) the audio and video again.

This resulted in Mpeg2 files that worked as they should (given the loss of quality).

I did two extra steps in virtualdub to get the files to be edited normally in Premiere Pro (as it is an native editor). I recoded the video to the Mainconcept DV codec (avi) and recoded the Audio to normal PCM 16 bits stereo because Premiere couldn't handle AC3 audio.

Hope this helps!

(can anybody tell me if this whole conversion could have been done through frameserving, as somebody advised me yesterday?)