Nero splits my VOB into pieces and I can't author :o(

[youcanjive]

Hi all

I just bought a Pioneer DVD recorder for the main purpose of capturing my old VHS tapes and burning to DVD. I'd tried doing it with Pinnacle9 and Nero but the quality just doesn't compare to using a DVD recorder so I bit the bullet.

I captured some video last night and was thrilled with the results. Extracted the files with DVD Shrink so I could import into Nero Vision Express to re-authour, create menus etc etc. It was all looking great, Nero recognised the VOB file...I was so excited...and then, to my horror, Nero started cutting the VOB file up into little clips.

There seems to be no logic of any kind to this and I'm so deflated that it's happened

I've looked everywhere in Nero for some setting...I thought maybe it was inserting chapters but I don't think so. The original VOB is one solid clip of only 3 minutes...just a music video clip.

I'm running Win XP, 1.5GB of RAM, 200 GB hard drive, I'm not short on resources by any means. Using the latest version of Nero, fully registered and all updates installed.

Nero does have an option to "merge" all the clips again which I tried of course but there's a 1 second black drop-out between each "join" when it's played back as one clip.

This is so disheartening...everytime I feel like I'm making progress with all this stuff it seems I hit a brick wall...and I'm not even trying to do anything extraordinary, I just want to put all my old music videos onto DVDs before the tapes die

Many thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Cheers,
Luke

[canadateck]

In the set up options of DVD Shrink , you will see somthing like split file at 1gig. Raise it to like 4gig and it will make one big file, This is how i do it. I think you will be ok. if not me know..

[youcanjive]

Thanks for the suggestion canadateck, I'll do that as soon as i get home tonight. I'm a little doubtful though as the file I was working with wasn't anywhere near 1GB...but I'll definitely change the setting.

Thanks for taking the time time to respond and I'll let you know how I go.

Cheers,
Luke

[jeanl]

Yes,
I had the same problem with my Pioneer recorder. Importing in Nero would split it in tons of small pieces. Eeeek! And then I got exactly the same blip problem at boundaries between chunks. I got to the bottom of that, here's what I found:
The problem is that the recorder saves the video in chunks (technically cells) of about 30s. You can check that by opening your vob files in vobedit for example (or the corresponding IFO files in IfoEdit). Then Nero interprets that as different chapters and splits the input accordingly. I didn't find a way to keep nero from doing that. Here's what you could do:
1) Try another authoring tool. I didn't try any other at the time, but maybe TMPGEnc DVD Author would behave different. There's a free trial, so you should go for it.
2) If you really want to use nero, then the solution I used was to demux and remux the video and audios streams. I remember using TMPGenc for that, but I'm sure there are other tools to do that. When you demux, you write out a large video file + an audio file and all the cells are merged together, seamlessly. After remuxing, nero will import in one big chunk. Demuxing/Remuxing will not affect the quality of the video. But in my experience, nero will always reencode your video (ARGH!) which is one more reason you should switch to another authoring tool (I now use TMPGEnc DVD Author)...

Post back if you need more info.
Jeanl
P.S. I've been there (about the feeling that you're making progress, then you hit another brick wall)! There are quite a few walls, but eventually you'll knock then all down!
BTW I don't think you need shrink to extract the VOB files from your DVD, a simple copy would work (but that's what shrink will do anyway).

[timmyp]

I definately agree. Demux and remux with TMPGEnc.

Go to MPEG Tools in the File menu and select simple demultiplex to seperate the video and audio to seperate streams. Then, use simple multiplex to re-join the 2 streams back into 1 file. Retry the new file in Nero. This should solve your problem.

[youcanjive]

Thank you to all for taking the time to answer my questions.

I will download this TMPGEnc program tonight and give it a try. I've spent a lot of time today (while at work ) trying to find a step by step guide to exactly how to do this demux and remux thing with TMPGEnc...I'm not over flowing with confidence with all this and it makes me nervous. Unfortunately I couldn't find anything that is really clear and in simple terms for newbies so I'll see how I go.

Special thanks to jeanl (especially for your empathy).

I'll let you know how I go.

I really appreciate your kindness

Cheers,
Luke

[jeanl]

don't sweat it mate, if you run into problems in your demux/remux there'll be plenty of people here to help you out!

But if I were you, I'd stay away from Nero. I had the same setup as you (pioneer DVD recorder) and I tried nero for a while, but decided it was simply too annoying to use and impossible to configure, and it insisted on re-encoding my videos systematically even when there was no need for it, which meant processing times of over 8 hours! TMPGenc DVD Author is better, in my opinion, even though it is a bit less powerfull (no transition, no timeline etc) and if you're lucky you might not even need to demux/remux.
Jeanl

[youcanjive]

Hi again.

Okay, here are my adventures over the past 48 hours or so...

I downloaded and installed the tmpgenc program. The first thing that threw me was that it wouldn't let me import the VOB files for the demux anyway...???

I'd read that you could just rename the VOB to mpeg and it would still work, so I did that and then tmpgenc allowed me to import it and demux it. I assume this was the correct thing to do ?

Then I tried to remux as advised...and just when I thought I was making progress tmpgenc threw up an error that said "multiplexing linear pcm stream to system stream is not supported"...another brick wall and I was deflated

I did some sniffing around and found that the "solution" to this was to convert the file to a format that tmpgenc would accept, which I was able to do in Nero (an mp3 I think it was). tmpgenc accepted this for the remux and then there it was, a solid mpeg at last...YAY !

I imported this into Nero without problem...and it wasn't broken into a hundred little pieces...at last...YAY AGAIN !

BUT...when I played it back the audio was so out of synch with the vision it was a joke...that was enough brick walls for one night. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry (I opted for the former). I shrugged my shoulders...deflated and defeated...and turned it all off.

Jeanl, I hear what you're saying about Nero (thanks again for your advice ) and I've read a lot of good things about this tmpgenc DVD Author...but I really want to be able to play with the files, create cool menus, transitions etc which (I believe) tmpgenc DVD Author doesn't allow you to do. Anyway, all that's a bit down the line...I just want to achieve WORKABLE files at this stage...that's the real objective for me out of all this "heartache"...LOL !

So, in summary, the main problem I'm faced with now is how to remux with my video and audio in synch so I have an authorable file I can (eventually) burn to DVD.

I swear I reckon I've aged 10 years in the past few days over this...LOL !

Kind thanks in advance for any further tips.

Cheers,
Luke

[jeanl]

Ok youcanjive.
I anticipated it wouldn't be as easy as we said it would, but hey, that's ALWAYS the case with DVD/video stuff. Sorry I wasn't more specific in my previous post, it was a while I did that and I must admit I didn't remember which tools I used. Here's how I did it tonight (just to check I wasn't bsing you!)

DEMUX:
Since you ripped a DVD, you have VOB files. They're not exactly the same as mpeg2 files, even though sometimes (but not always - that would be too easy) you can just rename them and things work.
Use Vobedit. That's probably the easiest way. Download here
http://www.doom9.org/Soft21/Vobtools/Vobedit06.zip

One quirk with vobedit is that it will process ALL the VOBs in your folder and they all have to be there for it to work! It does not matter which one you open, they'll all be processed and converted into m2v files and ac3 files (I'm guessing). The progress bar might even indicate 160%! Just let it finish...
Open VTS_01_1.VOB, click demux and select "demux all video streams" and "demux all audio streams". Click OK sit back and relax, this will take a while.

REMUX:
If you use Nero, I think you don't even need to remux! Yepeeee! You can import videos and audio as separate files, nero is OK with that if I remember correctly. But in case you do need to remux (because something goes wrong - and it probably will!), TMPGenc should be able to do it. Try again with the files created by vobedit (it worked for me). I'm not sure why you got the error you did get with it.

In short:
1) Try importing the demuxed streams straight into Nero without remuxing.
2) If that does not work and you need to remux. Try with the new demuxed files in TMPGenc. If that fails, tell us which version of TmpGEnc you used, and what kind of audio file you got (.ac3?). TmpGenc said "linear PCM" but that's very strange because I don't think the Pioneer DVD recorder encodes the audio as linear PCM (that would be very wastefull). It should be ac3.

You're almost there man. Don't give up! And check you private messages...
Jeanl

[jeanl]

Also, before I forget:
- Instead of ripping with Shrink and demuxing later on, in the future, you might be better off ripping and demuxing in one shot straight from the DVD with DVD Decrypter:

Open your DVD, select IFO mode. In the Input tab, select VTS_01 and PGC1. In the stream processing tab, select "enable stream processing" and select "Demux". Then click on the large icon to start the process. This will create a video and an audio file for VTS1. Do that again for the next one etc...

I'm not sure if it's more convenient than with Shrink and vobedit.
Since you're going to have to do that everytime you want to make a DVD from your pioneer, you'll need to find the most convenient solution!

Jeanl.

[youcanjive]

Jeanl...thank you so much for all this, you are the best !

I'll try it all again on the weekend with your detailed advice and report back.

I've replied to your private message, thank you for your encouragement

Cheers,
Luke