Reading VOB files

[GymDad]

I have a number of DVD's that I have recorded from TV, and I would like to use SVCD2DVD to rearrange episodes, make nicer menus, etc.

I was surprised that SVCD2DVD won't read the VOB files directly, but handles them with ease if I just rename the .VOB extension to .mpg. It doesn't appear to be re-encoding them, but it does create files with _S2D appended to the filename, which are only very slightly different (smaller) in file size than the original files.

When I tried using the _S2D files instead of the original ones (thinking that they might be already preprocessed or something) it actually took LONGER to process them!

So my questions are, why can't VOB files be imported directly, and what are these _S2D files?

Thanks in advance!

[Jikchung]

I would need to see your log to maybe be of help in answering your questions.

My suggestion is that you use VOB2MPG to convert the VOB's (doesn't take long) then import the resulting mpg files for use in SVCD2DVD, should take no real time at all then.

[ChrissyBoy]

I agree with Jikchung - try VOB2MPG first. Post your log anyway as the _S2D files should not be reprocessed...

[GymDad]

Sorry for the delay. I was evaluating other software packages. I just registered SVCD2DVD, and am looking forward to using it! It is a very nice piece of software. Thank you ChrissyBoy! The 1 GBP deal (that I found with the VOB2MPG zip) would have been nice, but I guess that is history. Fortunately, the exchange rate isn't as bad as I remember from the last time I was in the UK.

Let me clarify my previous question a bit. The VOB's that I am working with are just one track per title (not sure of the exact terminoloty), but there is only one VOB file per title/track. So what is the purpose of using another program (VOB2MPG) to "join up" files that don't need any joining up (they aren't split). If I rename the extensions from .VOB to .mpg, SVCD2DVD reads them just fine. So why can't SVCD2DVD just read the .VOB files directly and save me (and others?) the (minimal) effort of renaming the files just to "fool" the program?

I did a test comparing the processing times for the renamed .VOB files, the _S2D files, and the .mpg files created from VOB2MPG. The bottom line is that the asset processing times were almost identical for the 3 of them (7:34, 7:25, and 7:23, respectively. The total times were 24:30, 19:06, and 20:00, respectively. So it looks like using VOB2MPG may have given some advantage in total processing time. I'm not sure why, or if this is significant.

As for log files, I would be happy to post them if you were interested, but they are very long (19 files processed). If you tell me which parts you are interested in, I could post just that part.

Thanks again!

[Jikchung]

Yeah, the 1GBP deal was quite a while back.

As to using VOB2MPG, it's about remuxing and you should get more consistent results that way.

Just post the log from the run that used the S2D as input files in its entirety.

[ChrissyBoy]

Also - i have a release ready to go... Email me and i will let you test it - it will take a .vob file (in the same way as a .mpg).