[Resolved] Making 2 AVIs the same so that VirtualDub can append?

[Diana (Cda)]

It's been several months now and I've read posts in the forums here and googled and have tried so many different things. I'm not exactly anywhere closer to resolving my problem, but I've certainly had a ton of experience trying to find a solution.

I have workout videos saved to my PVR. I transferred them to DVD via my DVD Recorder. I can rip them with DVD Shrink with no problem, the problem lies in that I want to incorporate the menu screen that I created in the DVD recorder into the resulting AVI file. This menu contains the identifying information for the program that I need that I typed into the screens via the remote control. I can't lose that information.

So far, what I get is one VOB corresponding to the menu item and the TV program itself in the very large VOB. I then expand the menu VOB via a video editor and then I re-encode both to AVI with AutoGK. So far, so good. I get a short AVI with fade-in and fade-out, then the avi of the program itself. Even though in the latest attempt, however, I used fixed output settings for the video and audio in AutoGK, it obviously could not "normalize" their settings since both avi files are still disparate enough that VirtualDUB can't append one to the other.

The MENU AVI has this info as per GSpot:
Runtime: 00:00:04 (120 fr) [misc info]
x:y: 640x432 (1.48:1) [=40:27]
Bitrate: 1181 kb/s
FPS: 29.970
Qf: 0.142 bits/pixel

Audio in both is the same. AutoGK worked at least there. I set them both to 96kbps CBR.

The TV workout program has this in GSpot:
Runtime: 00:20:10 (36,270 fr) [misc info]
x:y: 640x480 (1.33:1) [=4:3]
Bitrate: 1630 kb/s
FPS: 29.970
Qf: 0.177 bits/pixel

I researched bitrate and know how to change the menu bitrate to be the same as the program bitrate. I've fixed the size, x:y, via a resizing filter in VD which I believe accomplishes this. I just don't know about the other GSpot numbers above. Also, can I perform all the all the tasks at once on the menu AVI? i.e., can I change bitrate, frame size and then save to AVI or must this be done in stages with each one losing quality? I've done one or the other in various tests of different shows but not done them all at once and curious to know best approach next time I attempt this again.

I don't know what the "Qf" number above is and if it even directly is one of the things responsible for VD not being able to join the 2 AVIs.

Anyway, any help is appreciated. I've not been able to find too much related to this even googling though there is a post about someone creating a clip with information from a graphic and trying to append that to a video who is having what sounds like the same problems I am. So this is something that hopefully can be addressed. I know that there are many of us who would also like to create clips to attach to video files from different sources so it would be nice to know how to fix this problem with making avi's the same.2

Also, as an aside, I've tried other approaches:
Making one avi out of both with something like WinAVI -- result = no audio
OE Video = wouldn't work at all, aborted
Added both menu and program VOBs to Vegas Video and rendered to AVI. This would work just great IF I didn't get 3 HUGE AVI files as a result which I couldn't join _either_!!! I got a great video but 3 files totalling about 10 gigs for a 20 minute TV program!!

So after all this still believe it's best just to try to adjust the MENU avi so that it's the same as the longer program avi and then joining together in VD.

Thanks.

[T-Fish]

what error does vdub show when you try to append the 2nd clip ?

[Diana (Cda)]

Well, that's where things get interesting. The error for this problem is this:
"Cannot append segment: The video streams have different sampling rates (29.97 vs. 29.97)."

Huh? Look the same to me. I can't remember what I did exactly but I chased down _that_ error last week and although they say the same number, they in fact were slightly off. But when I changed the rates to supposedly be identical, I kept getting the same error anyway, only the number stats kept changing!

I just wish there was an app or a process, or esp. that AutoGK could be made so that we could choose to make the AVIs identical in all the settings! I've gone back and re-encode all my TV programs with their menus with AGK with the same fixed settings but I guess the way AGK is built, that's not comprehensive enough. I used to just use the "auto" modes in both audio and video but setting a fixed width and same audio hasn't fixed the problem. No doubt it's made the AVIs much more identical but it hasn't done the job completely.

When I've fixed one thing for VD, then I got something else wrong. I was hoping that by posting the GSpot stats that that would signal what to do once and for all to "normalize" all the settings for both. Guess I was dreaming ... <g>

Anyway, does anyone have any suggestions?

[manono]

They're of differing resolutions also, so there's no way they'll append.

My suggestion is to number the menu and main video VOBs consecutively, put them in the same folder, load the first into AutoGK, and then it should pick up the others. You may have a problem with the cropping, though, as evidently the Menu has black bars that the workout part doesn't. You can fool with the cropping in the hidden options (CTRL-F9) to keep it from cropping, or to have it crop the way you like.

[Diana (Cda)]

(I'm sorry in advance, but this is probably going to seem like a thread of "been there, done that" too much, but it's actually the case so it can't be helped.)

Okay, I'd never thought of numbering sequentially and doubted it would work due to the AGK error that comes up with the menu, but tried it anyway. Sure enough though, the same error came up as with all previous trials when they were two separately named VOBs, namely:

"A field order transition was detected. You may need to use the Fix D2V tool to repair this stream. Refer to the DGIndex Users Manual for details."

The menu was ripped with DVD Shrink yes, but Shrink gave the usual menu error where it warns that menus aren't supported and to get full functionality, to not rip in re-author mode. But re-author allows us to pinpoint in Shrink exactly what we need which is why I use it despite the menu problems when transferring DVDs to XviD. So although a small VOB is ripped, AGK doesn't like it and gives the above error before aborting processing and so AGK never produces an AVI file. It's better to run through a video editor anyway since it makes it into both a full-sized viewable video clip in AVI format.

Anyway, I renamed the menu VOB so that it was VTS_02_1.VOB and the main one I changed to VTS_02_2.VOB. In AGK I pressed OK to continue beyond the above error above and surprisingly, AGK continued with the re-encode. Whether or not the first VOB will appear is anyone's guess at this point. Unlike the AVI that I made in the video editor from this VOB, this may only appear as a millisecond of the playback time which may or may not be a pain since it might take quick reflexes on the remote to pause it at the right time or pausing and stepping back with the rewind button to actually be able to see the information in the resulting target AVI. Anyway, time will tell ...

...

(6+ hours later)

Well, AGK was still working after a night's rest for me, and it looked like it was going nowhere so I aborted it. Surprisingly, the file was playable right away with seemingly no problems. I ran it through VD just in case and I've burned it to DVD.

Meanwhile, although this may have worked, it really is not the ideal. There are going to be many instances of needing to join two AVIs together where I make an intro clip in Vegas Video whether or not it originates from an edited menu created in my DVD Recorder. It is inconceivable and unbelievable that after all these months of trying I am actually no closer to knowing how to "format" or "normalize" two AVIs so that they can be properly appended. And in actuality, it's only to know how to get the intro or extra clips to the exact same formatting as the main one we're adding to so that we can append in VD. Every single thing I've tried after numerous hours of research on the net over several months hasn't worked yet.

When merging VOBs, if the app will even condescend to merge, the resulting VOBs have no audio or the audio is out of sync. I pursued syncing the audio on a merge only to have 2 problems: too difficult and never could get the audio synced 100% and even on the out-of-sync ones AGK didn't seem to like most of the merged VOBs anyway to begin with so VOB merging may be out totally (though can't remember the particular AGK error(s) that came up.). For anything that did come out as an avi that was all out-of-sync, no solution was straightforward and easy so gave up.

I've also tried probably a dozen AVI joining apps beyond VD. None worked. WinAVI was the other approach I tried which meant total re-encode but only a later model of WinAVI accepted the files but the output had no audio.

The Vegas Video route which unfortunately means a total re-encode of the _entire_ video, is still closest I've come so far. The AC3Encode app that makes a wav from a vob is the only demuxing or whatever app that gave me VOBs with sound in Vegas Video. When I put the VOBs into VV and then line up the extracted wav perfectly, I get VOBs with sound for use in the editor with no syncing problems at all so far. That was a big step forward yesterday. The app is called AC3DEC and I downloaded it from this page here: http://www.ac3dec.com/ (More info here: http://users.on.net/~rsobon/ac3dec.html, direct dl link found on this page is this: http://users.on.net/~rsobon/bin/ac3decode821.zip .)

...

Well, I just tested the burned DVD and it's official. Though the two different programs were AVIs that were produced in the same manner, the one with the menu forced into AGK via renaming the VOBs showed the error "Unsupported audio codec." in my standalone DVD player. Sure, the menu screen is there if I rewind then pause, but with there being no audio at all on the entire video, this turned out to not be the solution for this particular process.

<sigh> I have to say that this got old a very long time ago. It's been several months now and I'm absolutely no closer to a solution. So, the above doesn't work. I'm curious about something, since renaming the files actually forced AGK to deal with the VOB rips, can I do that with the extremely huge split AVI that Vegas Video produces??

i.e., I renamed these two files:
VTS_01_1.VOB
VTS_02_1.VOB
to
VTS_02_1.VOB
VTS_02_2.VOB
and AutoGK processed them together.

... Well, I tried this on the AVI files by adding 1_1 and 1_2 to the AVI names but unlike the VOBs AGK ignored the second AVI. I'm currently re-encoding through AGK the second small split piece that Vegas Video spit out and hopefully will be able to join the two pieces with VD. I don't hold out much hope but since both AVI pieces were made from the same Vegas Video output they _should_ be able to be joined. ... 'should' ...

But this whole thing _still_ begs the question: HOW do we format/normalize, whatever it's called, one AVI to another so that we can join them together. Contrary to the evidence on the net in forums and in googling, someone somewhere has got to have figured this out. I'm not the only one trying to do this yet there seem to be no published responses of success nor instructions on how to do this that I've been able to find so far despite countless hours of searching this winter.

If anyone knows of an app that can allows us to do this, pls let me and others know. Thx.

[poisondeathray]

The problem is different source dimensions between menu and program, so all the easy to use 1 click programs are going to screw up, and you have less control.

Since you are re-encoding anyways, you could do this all in avisynth directly from the source to keep the best quality - all the joining and resizing is done in the script and fed to the encoder in 1 instance, so it should always match up. Learning curve is steep, but if you've spent hours on it already, you could have learned the basics in that time.

If you are trying to fix this after the fact (i.e. format an already re-encoded avi), you have to use the same dimensions, settings, fps, etc...for video and audio for it to append in vdub or any other program. For example, you might be able to "fix" the first example you gave if you provided more information, mediainfo(view=>text), by re-encoding and resizing the into menu segment to match the program segment. Re-encoding the 4sec menu is preferable over doing the 20min program for salvaging, although the better method would be to start and do it correctly the first time around IMO.

[Diana (Cda)]

Hi, thanks. The funny thing is that AviSynth only turned up in this series of web searches in last couple of days so I didn't know about it and only even knew of app since it's something that AutoGK (AGK) mentions during the AGK install. Very odd since it seems to be able to do comprehensive enough tasks. You're right re the steep learning curve, though. My years of experience with AutoIt have taught me that I'm not good at scripting, but I do persevere <g>.

The thing as I see it, and please correct me if I'm wrong, is that I only need to fix the extra video clip, right? As long as I know what the target is, I'd only need its dimensions to correspond. That way, I can rip the main program from VOB and re-encode once to avi with AGK and then take the VOB from the menu and put that into Vegas Video and create the AVI then just get that AVI to correspond somehow with the main one (i.e., hopefully with AviSynth) and then join both with VirtualDub (VD). That would avoid a whole lot of mess and loss of quality and would be the ideal.

If this can be the case, would anyone mind helping with a template AviSynth script? I'm sure once I've done it once successfully, I can then modify it for the rest of my collection of DVD recordings. I did take some time yesterday to play around a bit with a couple of aviSynth scripts I found but this problem is way too complex for me at this stage. Also, do we have enough info from GSpot for the script? Here is the info again:

Short menu AVI clip, 00:00:04 (120 fr):
x:y: 640x432 (1.48:1) [=40:27]
Bitrate: 1181 kb/s
FPS: 29.970
Qf: 0.142 bits/pixel

Just need to change the above so that it has same dimensions, whatever, as this ...

Main TV workout program. 00:20:10 (36,270 fr):
x:y: 640x480 (1.33:1) [=4:3]
Bitrate: 1630 kb/s
FPS: 29.970
Qf: 0.177 bits/pixel

I know how to do some of the above, one by one, but if AviSynth could do it all with a script or even a script or three, that would be great.

Thanks!

[poisondeathray]

The problem is a generic script might work for this example , but not others because autogk or other 1 click program might have resized it differently or used different encoding settings in each case - so the script might change in each case.

A better way of doing it is to do it correctly from the very beginning instead of salvaging what you have. This is what I strongly recommend doing in the future.

Also you have provided no audio information on the 2 clips, or the encoding settings used e.g. b-frames, qpel, gmc etc... (which of course you don't know because autogk automates it). Post the screenshot of gspot, and/or use mediainfo (view=>text)

Assuming the audio was done the same, it might be as simple as this script, and using the same encoder settings as indicated in gspot and mediainfo. If the audio wasn't the same you may have to resample SSRC or some other manipulations. We can't help you more until you provide more accurate info.

AVISouce("video.avi")
LanczosResize(640,480)

[AlanHK]

Try this as an AVS script:

DirectShowSource("VTS_02_1.VOB")
#640x432
AddBorders(0,4,0,4)
AssumeFPS("29.97")
A=last
DirectShowSource("VTS_02_2.VOB")
AssumeFPS("29.97")
A++last

This adjusts the size of the first, by adding 4 pixels (black) to top and bottom. (Or you could stretch it.) Also it should make the frame rates the same.

However, it may not work if the audio is different.

If you make an MP3 of the right length, with 48000 sampling rate, you can dub it on the first track:

DirectShowSource("VTS_02_1.VOB")
#640x432
AddBorders(0,4,0,4)
AssumeFPS("29.97")
AudioDub(DirectShowSource("sound.mp3"))
A=last
DirectShowSource("VTS_02_2.VOB")
AssumeFPS("29.97")
A++last

You can open an AVS script in VDub, and then save the result as an AVI.

[jagabo]

Aside from the frame dimension problem:

The frame rate in an AVI file is specified by two integers, a numerator and a denominator. 29.97 fps can be represented in many ways. For example these two are often used:

30,000/1001 = 29.97002997002997...
2,997/100 = 29.97

As you can see, the first four digits of those two values look the same (29.97 -- what VirtualDub will show as the frame rate) but they are not exactly the same value. VirutualDub will not append files with those two frame rates. You have to use a program like AviFrate to make both have the same integer values.

[AlanHK]

You have to use a program like AviFrate to make both have the same integer values.

I just use AssumeFPS in those cases, seems to work, at least it lets me join the clips.

[jagabo]

You have to use a program like AviFrate to make both have the same integer values.

I just use AssumeFPS in those cases, seems to work....

Fine for AviSynth. But I meant for appending in VirtualDub. If the frame rates are different he can't just open one of his AVI files in VirtualDub, change the frame size and reencode. The new file will still have the wrong frame rate. It won't append even though the frame size now matches.

[manono]

"A field order transition was detected. You may need to use the Fix D2V tool to repair this stream. Refer to the DGIndex Users Manual for details."

That problem was fixed many months ago. Update your AutoGK.

[Diana (Cda)]

Arggghhhhhh, more hours and still nothing. AviFrate seemed to be so neat but it still doesn't do the job. There's more going on here than what meets the eye. This should be easy enough because it's a short clip with no sound! Sheesh ... Changed settings with AviFrate don't stick! When you re-open the file, if you got one thing, another setting refuses to stay put ... !

Can't make heads or tails of the AviSynth script yet because I forgot to hold onto the original VOBs and so went with another set (there are a lot of recorded DVDs to convert to XviD!). So will have to figure out how to deal with AVIs that have new data and plug in the right information into the script.

Them I'm going to call it quits for today. I really can't believe how difficult this is ... and not just for me ... lots of messages on the web with conflicting information. I really wish someone who knew how to do to this right from the get-go had made a nice webpage with a tutorial <sigh>. Lots of tutorials of all kinds out there but haven't found any instructions about joining two AVIs that yields results ... <sigh>.

Thanks everyone. I haven't given up yet so will just keep going ...

[Diana (Cda)]

Results of upgrading AutoGK, same as before except sans error. I renamed the 2 VOBs sequentially so that AGK would encode one after the other, but resulting AVI from the VOBs was again without audio.

So this didn't work either. I'm not about to transfer tons of DVDs this way only to have to try to figure out how to add the sound in afterwards because the extra seconds in the clips will definitely offset the audio so it becomes out-of-sync.

[poisondeathray]

It should only take a minute to fix it from the avi. It's only a few seconds long.

Does the menu section have audio? If not you cause use BlankClip() and AudioDub() to make "fake" audio, you might need SSRC(48000) depending on what the audio specs are

Please post the information requested (gspot and mediainfo), including audio information. It might be as simple as the following, but without more information we are just guessing here

AVISource("menu.avi")
LanczosResize(640,480)
AssumeFPS(30000,1001)

If you want, post the small avi menu section and a small avi clip from the program section and someone will look at it. There are many free hosting sites (eg. mediafire, megaupload).

If you want, post the corresponding sections from the VOB, and someone here will write you a generic script for doing it from the DVD. If you were to do it this way, I would use a script to append the clips before encoding similar to what AlanHK wrote above, so you don't have this problem in the first place.

[manono]

Results of upgrading AutoGK, same as before except sans error.

That's all I expected - to fix the error. As for the audio, since that first VOB, the menu one, has no audio, AutoGK doesn't see any audio and, thus, doesn't demux any. If all your menus are like this, I'm afraid you'll have to get the audio yourself from the main video VOB, find and fix the delay (equal to the length of the menu), and mux it in yourself.

There's no tutorial about this sort of thing because people, as a rule, don't add menus to the front of AVIs, and when they do, they don't use all-in-one apps like AutoGK. It's very good at what it does, but wasn't designed for what you want it to do.

poisondeathray's (and AlanHK's) solution of manual reencoding it is one answer, except for the fact that many people using AutoGK don't know, and don't want to know, the first thing about AviSynth.

[Diana (Cda)]

poisondeathray, thanks. (Sorry quotes not working tonight for me here <g>. Will reference your post.)

Re first item above, Understood. Will try one more thing. Manono gave me an idea but will check out medianinfo, it's a new one for me.

Re abouting posting the clip, etc., okey-dokey, this is super fantastic! Thanks guys. I'm going to try one more thing later tonight. I'm hoping it'll work. But more later before I go on to do that.

[Diana (Cda)]

manono, hi!

Oh, sorry. Got confused there since I thought it was to fix problem <g>. Thanks for the tip. It prompted me, since I run the menu VOB through Vegas Video anyway, it certainly would be a piece of cake to add audio to it before ... ... oh, darn. Just realized. We're dealing with the VOBs here, not the AVIs. Well, there goes _that_ possible solution. Would have been easy to add audio to the menu clip in Vegas Video before encoding to AVI but the process here is to run the VOBs as is through AGK. <sigh> There goes my idea <g>.

Is there any way to add audio to a VOB? <lol> [Kidding. That would probably open up tons _more_ cans of worms ...]

Well, I'll definitely be trying the other suggestions tonight instead.

Re what I'm doing being different from other people, not really. All I'm trying to do is to add something to an existing AVI. The other case I found on the internet was a person trying to add his own personalized video clip to a DVD made via a camcorder and converted to AVI. He had the identical problem I'm having, how in heck do we get two AVIs to have the same "specs", whatever, so that they can be appended together in VirtualDUB. That's it!!! Nothing more than that. And the solution so far is nowhere to be found ... (?) So hence my post here and another elsewhere a few months back which I can't find <g>.

I like AGK for converting VOBs to AVIs. It's the easiest thing in the world to use. I had a couple of years of headaches before I found it so really not willing to find something else. The guide we need is how to get all these container AVIs to correspond to one another -- and it shouldn't even be this hard since all we're ever going to need to do is to change "supplementary" or "additional" AVIs to correspond to one main one. Sheesh ... <g>

I still don't get why that AviFrate didn't work. The other weird thing is that it doesn't behave very well. I downloaded it from two different sources and they both had the same weird trouble each launch with the spaces in its location, of all things! I have some rudimentary AutoIt skills so I got the 8.3 filename of the executable and made a script to launch it via its 8.3 name and then it would launch without crashing. Go figure! But then when you change one item in it, it seemed to do it okay, but it couldn't seem to be able to handle doing more than one item on an avi because change one thing, and it would change something else. Change that thing, and it would change the first to something else .... argghhhh! <g> Seems pointless to have it. Even if it took a long time, I imagine I'd have better luck at trying to do it myself through VirtualDub though I'd probably come out brain dead at the end! <lol>

Welll, perhaps mediainfo and the other stuff will open up other avenues of possibilities.

Back to the drawing board ... thanks everyone. I really appreciate your patience! Mine is certainly frazzled ...

[Diana (Cda)]

Is there a way to run AVIs sequentially through AGK?

If these files that AGK would keep separate
VTS_01_1.VOB
VTS_02_1.VOB
can be renamed to
VTS_02_1.VOB
VTS_02_2.VOB
so that they come out as one file, can the same be done to two AVIs? Or would AGK also have trouble with the different "specs" of the two AVIs?

[Diana (Cda)]

Whoa, something just occurred to me. Just read on a forum post that WinAVI converts to DVD. Anyone run into any problems with AGK processing VOBs when one of the VOBs is a result of a VOB-to-AVI-to-VOB transfer with some editing done on the intermediate AVI file? Would AGK handle that or would it also turn around and give me error messages because the VOBs don't match or whatnot?

[jagabo]

AviDemux is a little less picky about appending AVI files. You might try it instead of VirtualDub.

AviFrate is a little tricky to use. Whenever you type values into the Scale, Rate, or Fps fields (and then tab out to the next field) it recalculates a new Fps value (Fps = Rate/Scale) then calculates a new Rate value from that Fps (Rate = Fps * Scale). This means it's hard to set an exact value for Rate because there are usually integer to floating point rounding errors (Fps is floating point, Scale and Rate are integers). I recommend you do the following:

Back up your videos so you don't have to worry about screwing them up.

Open your first video file with AviFrate. Note the Scale value. Note, and re-enter the value in the Fps field. Tab out. A new Rate value will be calculated. Save the result.

Open the second video. Change the Scale value to the same value that was in the first video. Enter the same Fps value that you entered in the first video and tab out. Save the results.

[Diana (Cda)]

OMG, OMG, I think it worked! Jagabo, thank you for your instructions. I was a little afraid of the results but working on copies rather than the originals was a great reminder. <g>

I fiddled with the settings in AviFrate as you excellently described and I then tried appending via VirtualDub and, finally (shock), no error and it made the join. However, I'll run some more trials as this seems way too good to be true <lol>.

The nice thing is that the main program is a straight VOB-to-AVI via AGK and the short menu will always be a small VOB-to-AVI clip made via my video editor first, so the end result is a nicely viewable clip. I then run this through AGK to get the size down to something reasonable which AGK does without seriously affecting quality. Made the changes via AviFrate as directed and then joined with VD.

But I'll try a few more trials before reporting back just to be safe. So far, so good, though! <fingers crossed>

p.s., here is the error I get each time I try to launch AviFrate directly:
"Can't open 2burn2DVD\0Movies\0WKT- STEP\apps\avifrate\avifrate.exe"
No drive letter or backslash was the clue so, as mentioned, I got the 8.3 full path and dumped that into a script that I actually click on instead of the exe. Wondering if anyone knows what the problem is here. I'm running WinXP Pro.

[jagabo]

AviFrate has problems when the EXE is in a path with spaces in the name. I just put AviFrate.exe in the root of drive C.

[mgh]

if you are joining number of clips and have trouble matching fps, fool proof avisynth script is:

vid1=directshowsource("vid1 file")
vid2=directshowsource("vid2 file").convert fps(vid1)
vid3=directshowsouce("vid3 file").convertfps(vid1)
.
.
vid1 ++ vid2 ++ vid3 ++............

all the videos will be matched to the fps of the first video. if you like, you can add a final line

convertfps(value)

of course, you also need to match the resolutions, by adding letterbox needed to maintain aspect ratio, and then resizing.

[Nelson37]

Always avoid spaces in file or pathnames. This will save you a lot of unneeded hassle.

Seems to me it would be quicker to just re-create the screen with the needed information from scratch, and make sure the properties match.

[jagabo]

Always avoid spaces in file or pathnames. This will save you a lot of unneeded hassle.

AviFrate is rather unusual in this regard. It can open files with spaces in the path or file name, no problem. But it has problems if AVIFRATE.EXE is in a folder with spaces in the name.

[Diana (Cda)]

Always avoid spaces in file or pathnames. This will save you a lot of unneeded hassle.

Actually, I haven't found this to be the case. Like in the situation with AviFrate, I found a workaround. AviFrate is unique in that the program's LAUNCH has a problem whereas usu. the spaces in filename affects only the file to be opened rather than the program itself. But for those that like and use AutoIt, here's the way around this with an AutoIt script, if anyone is interested:

;
; AutoIt
;
#NoTrayIcon ; AutoIt's icon doesn't show in systray
TraySetIcon(@ScriptDir & "\avifrate.ico") ; changes the icon displayed in the systray

;================================================= ======================
$8point3_short_filepath = FileGetShortName(@ScriptDir & "\avifrate.exe")
;================================================= ======================

ShellExecute($8point3_short_filepath)

Exit ; finished

I just needed to make sure that the icon I extracted from the executable, called avifrate.ico, is in the same directory.
The neat thing about the above script is that since I'm using relative paths for all, you could place the folder anywhere and the script would work. Coding that deals with absolute paths wouldn't work the minute you changed their location.

Thanks.

[Diana (Cda)]

Well, this has been really a great exercise. I gave it some time before I responded and in the meantime, tried this out on over 35 workouts that I needed to transfer. This whole process worked like a charm.

So here's the overview, I ripped the menu and workout segments using DVD Shrink set to produce one large AVI rather than breaking it up in chunks and having the setting to not produce the individual VIDEO and AUDIO files so that it ripped all files into one folder only with no nested folders to contend with.

I converted the workout segments directly from VOB to AVI with Autogordian Knot (AGK) with no problem.

I ran the menu VOB clips through Vegas Video which always produced a file of around 18-19 with a weird AVI dvsd compression. I never bothered to change that as just leaving the AVI default works just fine with AGK.

I ran each resulting menu AVI through AGK with the same output resolution and audio settings as the main segments then ran both menu clip and workout segment AVIs through AviFrate.

Results were consistent using AviFrate in this way, copy-pasted the scale from the main AVI to the menu one and then once the fps adjusted, would copy the fps from the menu avi back into the main avi (tabbing out each time or touching mouse into any other field like the rate field. In this simple 2 or 3 touch way, the settings became the same, then I pressed APPLY to adjust both permanently.

Then opened the menu intro clip in VirtualDub MP3 Freeze (the version I use, though I'm sure any one would work) and then appended the main workout to it and saved to a new AVI.

The above is brilliant. I've transferred nearly one whole set of workout DVDs to AVI that were originally VHS tapes that I recorded from TV workout shows going back about 18 years. It's so neat to have not only working DVD copies but all these backups, the backups being necessary as I've misplaced 2 DVDs already so need never go without since I now have backups without having to have copied _all_ the DVDs! <g> Also, from now on, it'll be easier to make new workouts from the XviD AVIs by copy-pasting segments to create whole new ones. I've boughts tons of DVD workouts over the years but for variety, keep coming back to the TV workouts as the commercial breaks provide an easy break point to splice workouts together from different shows.

Thanks to everyone for the invaluable help. This 6-month project has now been resolved.

[Diana (Cda)]

Had to come back with feedback on this issue, the results have not been consistent. For some videos, this whole resolution did work but for many more, it didn't. Here's what I found ...

Finally, while still battling with this and getting as frustrated as before, I found a reference that said that any time you mess with the frames per second (fps), one of the parts that AviFrate can modify, that that often throws the audio/video off sync, which is what consistently happens with this method above.

Fortunately for me, I stumbled upon a solution some weeks back that is holding up much better over time even with the different rips I'm doing. In the end, the best thing overall is to do all this in Womble MPEG video editor.

I take the static menu frame and duplicate it till I get 8 seconds of video (no sound). I merge these bits of vob into one big vob. Then I add an audio track and merge this video/audio. Then I take the new 8-second intro and then add the main video file vob and merge both into a whole new vob. I then convert that final one into AVI. So far, any loss of quality has been minimal, or at least nothing I can tell on the TV screen and yet I have my full menus with all the necessary info. It sounds way more complicated than it is. The process is rather and the results consistently very good.

I created templates to make this whole process easier, too. I open up a template then point it to the latest VTS_01_1.VOB and it gets replicated as needed, etc to make the 8-second intro vob. Etc., etc.

So far, have had more consistent results with this method despite "re-encoding". Womble is fast like VirtualDub when you use the "Direct Stream Copy", and if it's not completely lossless, the loss is rarely noticeable.