VOB editing

[ek020]

I have a VOB file that I need to edit: I need to select a 35 second segment (somewhere wedged inside the total 5 minutes), alter the playback speed of this segment, and then produce it as XviD or something. The playback speed needs to be super slow motion - so frame by frame. When I play the unedited VOB in MPC and choose "Frame Step", the quality is great - but I can't figure out how to do this digitally and save it as a separate video file. I'm using Ulead VideoStudio - so I first needed to convert the VOB to AVI in order to edit the video - which messed up that frame by frame quality that I'm after.

Any suggestions on how I could achieve a quality result would be great.

[Baldrick]

Doesn't videostudio supports mpeg streams directly? have you tried just rename the vob to mpg or if you have the dvd use vob2mpg.

If not then try convert to avi using avidemux, use for example dv-avi or huffyuv under video and under audio use lpcm.

[ek020]

thanks - renaming to mpg worked. now i'm just scratching my head as to why videostudio's idea of frame by frame is different (it's all blurry) to mpc's "Frame Step".

[poisondeathray]

Maybe videostudio is using a blend deinterlace mode ?

You could also use vdub with the mpeg2 plugin, isolate that segment, set the fps to something low for slow playback, then encode to xvid.

Another option to do this same thing is avidemux, which can import vob or mpeg2 directly, and supports output to many different formats

If you want to do this properly, you should be inserting dup frames, and/or using interpolated frames (e.g. pixel motion in after effects), that way the video plays the same fps, but looks slower

You also have to figure out what you want to do with the audio. Do you want pitch shift, no audio etc...

[ek020]

thanks for the responses...

i'm pretty sure vdub with mpeg2 plugin is the tool that i need, but i'm overwhelmed by all the options.

i tried opening the clip.mpg in vdub and then saved it as clip.avi without editing anything. the outputted file is 1gb and when i play it with mpc and pause it to do manual frame stepping, it blurs.

to simplify stuff let me rephrase the question:

i have a 10 second clip.mpg. if i play it in mpc, pause it, and do manual frame stepping at playback, the result is pristine. i want an outputted video file to be frame by frame like this, without sound, and not more than 50mb or so.

[poisondeathray]

You forgot to use compression.

Video=>compression (you can choose xvid, for example, if you have xvid vfw installed). Filesize = bitrate x running time

You might want to do the same for audio (use mp3 for example, if you have lame mp3 acm installed)

Also, if your mpeg is interlaced or telecined, you may want to deinterlace, or IVTC before you encode it (can you see horizontal lines in vdub? or is it clear?) - not sure if this is the reason for the blurring (your decoder might be set to blend deinterlacing)

You can use the mark in/ mark out to cut your clip, and use video=>frame rate to change the frame rate then save it (e.g. fps 12 would be about 1/2 speed of a normal 23.976fps movie clip)

[ek020]

yeah there are lines

i guess i gotta dig in and learn about video editing

a seemingly simple procedure turning into a bit of a mess

[poisondeathray]

Start with some basic concepts and reading:
www.100fps.com

The beta version of vdub 1.9.1 has built in filters, like IVTC, or yadif for deinterlacing