Whats a good storage / transport Codec on the PC

[waxsteel]

Hi there

I've had a lot of "fun" recently with a project re-encoding loads of dvds down to something that'll play on a cdrom, within a Macromedia Director interface.

I rip the VOBs on the pc with DVD decrypter, then I've been copying them onto my mac & running MPEG streamclip to turn them into MOV files with animation codec (to reduce file size) & then copy back to pc to encode to mpeg 1 with TMPGenc. (I have quicktime pro on both machines)

I dont want to keep going over to the mac - (shunting huge files onto external drives has cost me loads of time)

I can convert to uncompressed avi on the pc but the uncompressed files are huge & I keep running out of space

Does anyone know of an application that will allow me to convert a VOB to an animation codec compressed MOV - on the pc.

Or can anyone suggest a better storage/transport codec that I can convert the VOB to on the pc. I'm not keen to lose quality.

Thanks

[jimmalenko]

I'm struggling to work out what you're trying to do here. Is MOV the final format you want these in ? If so, where does MPEG-1 come into it ?

Or is MPEG-1 your preferred final format and you're using MOV as your "transport" codec ?

[waxsteel]

Well yes. The mov is for transport & the MPEG 1 is final format.

Its for a sales force user base, all on pc laptops of undefined specification & unknown user privliges. So I reckon that getting them all to install quicktime might be difficult.

Hence I want the video as MPEG 1 - no need to install any codecs their systems. The videos add up to about an hour of footage, to be run off cdrom (in a director presentation) because not all their laptops have dvd drives.

I just want to be able to rip the VOB files to a lossless (or nearly lossless) file format I can then use in MPEG encoders. I can already rip straight to AVI but then its got to be uncompressed & therefore enormous.

I also have to create edits with the footage in after effects & premiere so its not always straight ripping and converting.

[Krispy Kritter]

What are your other input choices in Macro Media Director? I find it hard to believe it only accepts mov format. If it accepts mpeg2, you could go straight from dvd into director.

[waxsteel]

I'm using the mpeg advance xtra by Tabuleiro to play the MPEG1file in Director. It DOES also allow you to play mpeg2 video in Director (DVD quality from a cd - sounds great) BUT you still need an MPEG2 decoder present on your target machine.

I believe (perhaps wrongly - though the Tabuleiro xtra supports my view) that you must have a DVD drive on the pc to decompress the mpeg2 video. Since some of these laptops dont have DVD drives then I guess it rules out mpeg2 playback.

Or can you play back an MPEG2 with just something like power DVD installed & no DVD drive present?






I guess thats something like power DVD

[Krispy Kritter]

Your original source is mpeg2 and Director supports mpeg2 input, so input your video directly into Director and then convert to mpeg1. The more times you convert the video, the more quality you will use. You want to go from source to final format whenever possible.

Take a look in the CONVERT section for conversion from DVD to VCD/SVCD.