DVD file conversion

[frankandjoan]

Let me start by thanking all those who participate in this site to make it so informative. I started out on this hobby many years ago, but I never was able to produce an actual movie before I became a member here. I bought the right equipment and learned to use it through this site, and we have been able to produce three movies so far.

So, my wife and I have gotten to the point of trying to improve the quality of our output, and I made a series of what may be dumb moves unsupervised. See what happens when you take your eyes off the kids for a minute? They wander off and get in trouble!

Here was the bright idea. We went out to get a stand-alone DVD recorder/player for the bedroom TV. We chained the video signal into it through the VCR, and we stuck our analog vacation video tapes into the VCR, playing and recording them to DVD +RW disks.

Next, we bought a DVD RW drive for the computer, installed it, and stuck our raw vacation DVD’s into it to read off the vacation video files to the computer HD. Excellent plan on paper, but in reality, not so great. It seems that we can’t do anything with the .VOB files from our bedroom DVD RW unit.

We use Adobe Premiere 6.0 to edit our movies, and we have grown quite accustomed to it. But it won’t import these files. What I need are either some guides or some guidance as to what I’m doing wrong and how to do it right. Capability is no longer the issue, quality is now the goal

Thanks.

[pippas]

If you are running XP, then the easiest way I have found to 'recover' the DVD .VOB files back to .avi for editing is first copy the VOB files from the DVD to your hard drive.

Then rename the file extension from .VOB to.asf

Import the .asf file(s) to Windows Movie Maker (I use MM1)

Place all the clips on the timeline

Go to the 'Save Movie' icon and select DV AVI (NTSC or PAL, as required) from the 'other' output options menu.

Save the movie, which can then be imported into Premiere for editing.

Don't know if this is considered as the best way, but it works for me!

[ZippyP.]

Womble mpeg video wizard...cut, edit, transitions, titles, add audio/commentary. Works with VOB's or VRO's (DVD-ram). It will output an mpeg that you can then author and burn to disk. It's nothing fancy but it does everything I want and it's relatively easy to learn.

[WishMaker]

Renaming the VOB file to .asf didn't work for me.
When I tried to import it into Windows Movie Maker, it said it
couldn't (corrupted or somthing).

I went back into my still open windows explorer and renamed
it back into a .VOB file. I played it in windvd and it played fine.

Maybe it didn't work, because I had ripped just this one VOB
from a DVD (using Smartripper). I need to make this VOB into an AVI to use in
another program.

Any other methods to convert one VOB into an AVI?

[teegee420]

Converting to avi is a bad idea. You're going to lose quality, which sort of defeats your purpose, no? Editing mpeg-2 is difficult and mostly meets with poor results. The only programs that do a decent job are the ones made by Womble. Follow ZippyP's advice.

[pippas]

teegee420 - you are right of course, no need to add an extra conversion, with the resultant loss of quality if you don't need to!

But I had a need to get back some video that I only had on DVD (home stuff, not commercial) an add part of it to a new project in Premiere - so I did the renaming bit, and imported the avi to the new project for editing - didn't seem to be too much quality loss.

WishMaker is right though - tried the samething from a commercial DVD - ripped a VOB with DVD Decrypter, renamed it .asf, and Movie Maker didn't want to know - clearly something different with the decrypted file!

However, if I renamed the DVD Decrypter VOB as .mpg, then I could import it to Procoder, and convert it to .avi - no problem!

I think there's a lot more for me to learn about just changing file extensions!

[WishMaker]

I don't have Procoder. (At least I don't think.)

The reason why I need this 2min 16sec VOB to be in AVI is to use
in a Macromedia Director 8 version project, which doesn't support
mpeg. (Version 8.5, does, of course )

I also need the music and voice-over that's in it, otherwise
I'd make my own trailer. I just don't have that kind of a
"Movie Trailer voice

[pippas]

WishMaker - I've read your sig, so this may be an example of sloooow progress!

First, I must confess to being a bit of a newbie at all this, so I apologise to the experts if I say something silly!

I think that the reason that Movie Maker didn't like the commercial ripped file was because the audio is AC3 - my home DVD VOB had straight pcm audio, which it accepted as OK.

So may be that it might be necessary to de mux the file, and convert the audio to a .wav file, and import the video and audio separately to Movie Maker to convert to .avi.

I am going to try this with Tmpgenc, and use one of the free AC3 to wav tools for the audio.

Then try and put it back together in Movie Maker.

There's probably a much easier way, and maybe some of the more experienced guys could help here.

But I do like a challenge, so I'll have a go anyway!

[pippas]

WishMaker -
Not quite as straightforward as I thought! - It's easy enough to demux in Tmpgenc, and then convert the ac3 audio file to wav using ac3Tool.

but if you then import the .m2v video and the .wav audio into movie maker separately, then the audio is way out of sync on the exported .avi file.

So I tried this way instead:

Rip the VOB using DVD Decrypter (free)

Rename as .mpg, and import to TMPGenc (free - for 30days!)

Demux, using the demultiplexer in 'Mpeg tools' section

Convert the ac3 audio to .wav, using ac3Tool (free)

Import the video .m2v file, and the .wav audio file back into TMPGenc, and convert to a DVD mpg file.

Import the new .mpg to Movie Maker, and export as .avi.

Seems to work OK - with no noticeable loss of quality.

There is probably an easier way using free tools, but the only way I have found easier is to just rename the original VOB as .mpg, and import to Procoder (sadly, not free!)

[WishMaker]

pippas,

Thank you for working it out. I'll give it a go the way you described.
Seems like there should be an easier way, but then we are trying
to do the opposite of what this forum is all about.

I wish there was a way to fool the program I want this AVI for into
thinking the mpeg was an AVI. I mean, isn't an AVI just a kind of
wrapper? I don't think my program cares as long as it's AVI, but I'm
probably wrong or else someone would have done it before.

I'll try and update, but it may be awhile.

PS: My sig is oh so true for me...

[teegee420]

I wish there was a way to fool the program I want this AVI for into
thinking the mpeg was an AVI.

There is! Load the VOB(s) into DVD2AVI, save your project to a .d2v file, nstall VFAPI Reader, run VFAPIConvEN.exe, add the d2v project file and click convert. This will create a fake avi that will act as a frameserver when you open it with another program. Hope this helps(and works).

[frankandjoan]

Boy, you folks are way over my head! I downloaded DVD Decryptor this morinig, and I’m going to give it a try hopefully before I go to work this morning. We were appointed as videographers for a friends wedding, and we followed the wedding party out to Vegas to get the footage. Clearly, our standard home movie quality will not do for this production.

Looks like I’m going to have to analyze and experiment with the advice presented here, so that I even know the QUESTIONS TO ASK! But, I’m hopeful that DVD Decryptor will solve my problems, and there will be no issues to ask about. Thanks for the advice!

[Roderz]

@ frankandjoan
Seeing as you already have a capture card on your pc, wouldn't it be easier to just capture the footage again with the pc in avi format and edit that.
The methods outlined by the others should work though