How do I transcode .vob to .mpeg ?

[Phanis]

I have created a slide show file (slideshow.vob) with DVD-slideshow and need to convert
it to mpeg4 I think in order to burn it on dvd. Is there a program that can do that job ?
I believe it can be done with transcode but couldn't find out how.
Your help would be most welcome.
Theophanis

[mats.hogberg]

No, no, no. mpeg4 has nothing to do with Video DVD. VOB does, and can be demuxed into the components real authoring apps would expect:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/answers/Applications_GUI_Multimedia/DVD9_to_DVD5_guide
Specially item 3 may be of interest.

/Mats

[Phanis]

Thanks Mats for the info.
I followed the instructions and works OK .The only problem was that when
tried to multiplex the .m2v and .ac3 files got the error msg " can not read
from xxxx.ac3 file". Burned the project on a DVD and can play it but without sound.
Any idea what the problem might be ?
Has to do maybe with the type of audio file I used when creating the dvd-slideshow ?
When running the xxx.vob slide show file on Kmplayer works fine.

Theophanis

[mats.hogberg]

Probably there's no AC3 stream in your VOB, no.
What audio stream is there?

/Mats

[Phanis]

The audio file is .wav type. DVD-slideshow supports at the moment mp3, ogg and wav formats.
About the stream you are asking I am not quite sure if above information will be of help.
I guess I have to do some reading concerning the AC3 stream subject .

Theophanis

[mats.hogberg]

DVD-slideshow surely converts the audio (since neither mp3, ogg nor wav is DVD audio) to some DVD compatible format. These are mp2, AC3 or LPCM.

/Mats

[Phanis]

You are right.
Reading the manual of dvd-slideshow I see following :

"... [-mp2] Use mp2 audio by default. AC3 audio seems to be more stable
when playing in dvd hardware players, but requires ffmpeg. This
will over-ride the AC3 default and use the mp2 audio encoder. "

Since I didn't use the -mp2 option when creating the slide show the stream audio must be AC3.
To extrtact the .ac3 file from the .vob I used the command
" tcextract -i xxxx.vob -x ac3 -t vob>xxxx.ac3 "
From what I read on the manual of tcextract the command must be correct.
But the created .ac3 file is indeed empty. Any idea why ?

Theophanis
P.S. Thanks for your help Mats so far.

[mats.hogberg]

No idea, really. Isn't there any command in the transcode library to list available streams i a vob? tcprobe perhaps?
You could also try tcdemux
http://www.transcoding.org/cgi-bin/transcode?Tcdemux
tcdemux -i xxxx.vob -x ac3 > xxxx.ac3

/Mats

[Phanis]

Dead end . Couldn't find a command in transcode to show available streams in .vob
tcdemux didn't work either.With tcprobe got following , but means nothing to me

tcprobe -i olympos.vob
[tcprobe] MPEG program stream (PS)
[tcprobe] summary for olympos.vob, (*) = not default, 0 = not detected
import frame size: -g 720x576 [720x576]
aspect ratio: 4:3 (*)
frame rate: -f 25.000 [25.000] frc=3
PTS=0.1847, frame_time=40 ms, bitrate=7500 kbps
audio track: -a 0 [0] -e 48000,16,2 [48000,16,2] -n 0x50 [0x2000] (*)
PTS=0.1847, bitrate=128 kbps
-D 0 --av_fine_ms 0 (frames & ms) [0] [0]

Will try create the slide show again with option -mp2 and see if it works.

Theophanis

[mats.hogberg]

Did you try
tcdemux -i xxxx.vob -x ac3 > xxxx.ac3
or
tcdemux -i xxxx.vob -n 0x50 > xxxx.ac3
(The -n 0x50 is from the tcprobe output:
audio track: -a 0 [0] -e 48000,16,2 [48000,16,2] -n 0x50 [0x2000])

/Mats

[Phanis]

I had used
tcdemux -i xxx.vob -x ac3 > xxxx.ac3 and didn't work.
I tried now also
tcdemux -i xxx.vob -n0x50 > xxx.ac3
but still doesn't work.

I have create a new (smaller) dvd slideshow and used the option -mp2 for the audio
just to check it, and when I did tcextract -i xxx.vob -x mp2 -t vob > xxx.mp2 it worked fine.
The xxxx.mpg file works fine also. Haven't burn it yet on a dvd to see if it plays OK on my
dvd hardwear player though.

Theophanis