Note: ffmpegx, quicktime 6 mpeg-2 decoder both needed for this process.

I assume this is the guide qshartle is going to present to you, since it stems from ffmpegx and major gave me advice to append .mov to the end of a vob file to get it to decode and scale in qt instead of the other software within. Now there are some limitations that I’m going to mention because (no offense qshartle, but if this is the method you are using I assume you haven’t found these limitations) they are pretty annoying limitations.

If you have ever tried the black pic, transcode mpeg2->mpeg2 in qt workaround and have extensive experience you will probably know about the ~4 gig bug, as soon as a vob is over 4 gigs quicktime doesn’t parse it correctly and it freezes on a certain frame and encodes the same frame the rest of the movie. Well this process (since using quicktime) has the same limitations. My advice is after you rip the vob file open it in qt and see if
1) the correct entire time of the movie is listed

2) make certain you can scroll through the movie without it locking up on a certain frame. If it DOES lock up on a certain frame this process will do the same thing, qt appears to choke on these files sometimes.

Now if you do see that this file has the limitations you have a few different options (not all tested, some just theoretical)
1) you can try to demux and remux in 4 gig segments. And THEN run the video through the process, unfortunately you end up with more than one file to re-encode, which can be annoying once your done encoding because u need to rejoin the video after encoding one after another

2)now this is just THEORETICAL I have my comp running and testing it tday, it MIGHT not work. You can try ripping to elementary streams (m2v and ac3) and run the m2v through a program called bits.

http://www.info.polymtl.ca/~anmis/Bits.tgz

this program does the same thing as mpeg append (hey if you have that, use it! Its faster) and fixes the timecode of the video file… this MIGHT not fix the problem, I have to do more testing before I can report that it does.



Okay enough with my LONG winded intro. On to the ROUGH tutorial.

1) rip the vob file in osex deselecting all but the first audio stream, all of the subpicture files and all but the first angle (if applicable)

2) rip the ac3 file out with extractor (in this process you need to encode the audio separately from ffmpegx)

3) open the vob in quicktime and make sure the time display information is correct and that you can scroll through the entire video without it freezing on a certain frame.. if your file is under 4 gigs you SHOULDN’T have that problem

4) change the type/creator of the file to MPEG/TVOD- this is possible in MPEGPowerTools, you select fix as the option from the pop-up button select your file, select the file suffix and then it will change the type creator for you.

5) Append .mov to the end of the file

6) Open ffmpegx, select your input “mov” file and your output folder/filename

7) select the options as necessary from this point, you can choose divx or mpeg2 (not mpeg1 I don’t think) make sure if you choose mpeg-2 that you uncheck encode audio in the audio tab.

8) Under the mpeg-2 tab uncheck everything except altivec. I suggest you change threading as well. You can check deinterlace if you want, I suggest you do.
9) Under tools check keep elementary streams and uncheck all post processing options
10) Click encode and your on your way!

If you encoded mpeg-2 you need to encode your ac3 seperately in another program, I suggest MissingMpegTools or MediaPipe to encode the file to mp2 vcd compliant.

If you did everything properly you will end up with a video stream that is the proper length then you can multiplex with the new audio after encoded in MMT or mediapipe.

I have written a new program called PMoovConverter that lets you select a vob and ac3 file, re-encodes both with more settings for mpeg2enc than ffmpeg offers (yet) and is also capable of encoding vcd (which I don’t THINK will work in ffmpeg) and then multiplexes them for you… all in one basically. Since its based on software written for ffmpeg (movtoy4m) I am waiting on his permission to release it.

if you have any questions let me know-- i'm still doing ALOT of testing with this method, so i don't know EVERYTHING about it yet.. but i will