What will convert DVD VOB files back to MPEG files

[Bstansbury]

I've made a very good DVD video, but now I'm not happy with the Menu that I included with the video. I've deleted all the edited video (still have orginal video source) so I would like to convert my DVD vob files back to MPEG so I can edit out the menus and create a new menu and then finish the DVD again.

I used VideoStudio to create the DVD. I see there are many programs that will convert the DVD back to AVI and of course that would be an easy way to the avi back into VideoStudio and re-author a new set of menus.
However, that means the entire video would have to be re-compressed into MPEG all over again. I would think I would lose quality in doing that process.

What I would like to do, but not sure if it is possible, is rip the DVD and eliminate the menu section. Then I could create a new menu in VideoStudio, save it as an MPEG file, and somehow merge the two files back to a DVD video,....?????

Any suggestions.

[mats.hogberg]

I would like to convert my DVD vob files back to MPEG

No conversion needed, as the main ingredient in a VOB is an mpg video stream (together with an audio stream). Bot can be demuxed with VOBEdit or ReJig.

/Mats

[DJRumpy]

There are a couple of different methods. Many of the DVD ripping software packages will let you do stream ripping, which essentially lets you skip all of the extraneous material like trailers, menus, ect., that are embedded in the MPEG stream.

If you already have the VOB's from the DVD on your drive, you can still extract the parts you want to keep using a few of the rippers.

I would suggest VOBrator to actually strip out extraneous streams, without re-encoding. You can strip out subtitles, various audio tracks, and video streams. It also has the option to give you a single output file. As Mats has already indicated, VOB is MPEG, but with a few minor variations in the header. Because of that, you can simply be rename your output VOB to .MPG for most encoding/authoring purposes.

If VOBrator is not to your liking, just search for Ripping software that also lets you work with files that have already been ripped. There are a few out there. Hopefully someone in the forum will know of a few off the top of their head. I only use DVD Decryptor, which doesn't work with files that are already ripped.

[bugster]

For single VOB files, TmpGenc, File->Mpeg tools, de-multiplex.

[bottle-necked]

You didn't say which Ulead program you used to create the original dvd but MovieFactory 2 has a button labeled "Import DVD Video". Since your DVD does not have copy protection on it you can simply put in the disk, run moviefactory and select that as the source. The program much copy the contents of the disk to the hdd. You would select the VIDEO_TS folder and the program should do the rest for you.

Many people report no problems by simply renaming a vob file to .mpg. This would mean you need to copy the vob files to your hdd then rename them (using Windows Explorer). Vob files from commercial dvds can contain multiple audio streams etc and simply renaming them isn't that good an idea (to me anyway), but I've renamed 'simple' vobs before without any problems I can find.... lol

The 'usual method' to convert VOB to MPG is to Demultiplex the vob file then Multiplex the streams into MPG. Tmpgenc can do this using MPEG TOOLS in the file menu.

Many authorizing programs has the ability to import dvd video and Tmpgenc DVD Author is one such program as well as some Ulead programs I assume. Since all you want to do is change the menus then I would try the 'Import' option first. I've used that a few times in DVD Author with good results.

Good luck.

[Bstansbury]

Gosh,... Thanks to everyone for the great information. I'll try it tonight and hopefully I'll have some luck. I used Ulead VideoStudio 7.0 to author the DVD and to create the menu's. It all worked just great and I thought I was totally done with this project,... so I cleared off about 90 GB of edited source. Now when I look at the finished product, I find that I misspelled a couple of words in the title screnes and in the 14 chapters I added. That is the one thing I've never been good at,... Oh well,.. what can you expect from an "Electronics Engineer". I wish there was a spelling checker in the authoring software,.. but that would really be too much. There are other ways I can check my productions before I'm done.

I tried several other programs to convert DVD to AVIand had no luck. DVD2AVI just wants to frameserve to something else and not create an .AVI file. I tried FlaskMPEG and while it did the job of encoding to .avi file, about 1/3 way through the .avi video, it totally looses sync with the orginal audio. There is no sync problem in the master.

Now that I understand more about VOB files, I should have better luck.

[racer-x]

Here's the easiest way for your case:

Put your DVD in your PC. Use DvdDycriptor in "IFO" mode. Choose Stream mode. It will diplay all your chapters. Each chapter will be a video clip. Select one at a time and extract them, this way you'll have the videos seperate frome one another.

Good luck!

[Bstansbury]

I want to thank several of you that suggested the route to change .vob to .mpg. I ripped the DVD using DVDStripper (which actually uses DVD Decrypter), which listed every thing on the DVD including the Main Menu and the 14 scenes inside 3 submenus. I was then able to view each cell ID and make sure what each cell was.

I renamed the VOB files to .mpg and they loaded fine into VideoStudio. I had to do it this way because I found a couple of other errors in the video that had to be fixed. Once it was loaded in MPEG format, there was no problem in editing out the bad title, and one screwed up scene. I also had to redo all the intro sound on the 4 title pages but that was easy. Now every thing is fixed and all I have to do is remake the Menus and burn the DVD again.

Again, I really want to thank you all. That is the great thing about this web site,... people really respond when you need help.

[ntloser]

I found the easiest way to convert the VOBs into MPG using TMPG DVD Author


1. Open TMPG DVD Author
2. Choose Create New Project
3. Choose Add DVD Video
4. Navigate to the VIDEO_TS folder and click OK

YOU SHOULD SEE THIS



5. Click Next and be sure to put a check in "Copy clip video data to the HD" (This extracts the vob and converts to MPG)



6. You should see this

[DJRumpy]

This is easier than renaming if from blah.vob to blah.mpg?

Sorry Bstansbury, a little fun at your expense...

[ntloser]

No, its not easier but if you truly want to extract the MPG from the VOB that is one way to do it.

[Bstansbury]

I glad to find out about another way. I may need it in the future. Right now I don't own TmpgenDVDAuthor. I think the point was that it is a "TRUE" conversion of VOB to MPG, which gets rid of stuff in the VOB file that is not there in the MPG file. Since my DVD VOB files were very basic, I know there was not extra stuff in them, and I assume that is why they worked great when I changed the extension.

I'm still looking for the post where someone did a detailed series of test on MPEG encoders such as TMPGen, MainConcept, and CCE,... as I wanted to extend that test and compare the results to some of the newer MPEG encoders, especially the ones in the Ulead family of products.

If anyone has any info on this I would appreciate it. Thanks again.

[ntloser]

Just thought I'd mention Pro Coder is supposed to be excellent. It can encode directly from VOB (with a small reg hack) without a frame server. Supposedly it offers the best quality, options and is the fastest.

[DJRumpy]

Bstansbury, you'll have a hard time getting anyone here to give un-biased results for encoder tests. People tend to make a choice, and then stick with it through thick or thin.

Even is someone takes the time to test each encoder, chances are the person doing the evaluating isn't a regular user of each encoder. We've already found that someone who is familiar with any particular encoder can pretty much always get better results than a casual person doing quality tests.

It would probably be a better idea to get the forum to sponser some sort of contest, with a difficult sample clip, and then ask everyone to submit a 'best' effort for encoding it, within whatever bitrate restrictions they deem acceptable. I would think you could get much a more accurate comparison that way.

[racer-x]

Great idea, DJRumpy!
I'll bet those results will be interesting. Hopefully the clip will also contain small text on it. Some otherwise very good encoders, fail miserably with text.

[DJRumpy]

If you want to pursue this, I would suggest you PM Baldrick to see if he has any interest in this. Who knows?

[Bstansbury]

Thanks DJRumpy,...

You're right,... the best way is to get people to submit there test cases to the forum and get each classified for speed, passes, VBR verses CBR, etc., but we need to all use the same test cases (S). A lot of people only care about everyday encoding,... with simple videos with very little action. Then there are the purist,... who want the ultimate studio quality,.. that is great if that is what they want and are willing to pay for it.

I'll do as you suggest and see where we get. After all, I was the original dumb nut that proposed we needed a separate forum for DV, and the vote turned out to agree,... and now we have one. Who would have thunk.

[freshie]

If you're using Video Studio 7, just drop the .VOBs into your timeline. It will treat it as MPEG2 video file. No conversions necessary since there's only 1 audio and 1 video stream.

[Bstansbury]

Freshie,... thanks for the info. Back in May I changed the VOB file to .MPG and it loaded fine. I'll try the "TimeLIne" suggestion. I've read all of the help files on VideoStudio but never found any mention of what you have suggested,... no surprise,.... there are lots of things not mentioned in the limited help files. In any event, I got everything working. Thanks again.