VOB File and CD overburn Query

[scott274]

Lately I was trying to free up some disk space and so was moving some old movie files on the disk to CDs to play on my DVD player. Now most of these files are DAT (VCD format) and so far I was just using VCDgear to unwrap them to MPG and then author them to VCD images and burn.

But one of the movie files is VOB and yet seems to be in VCD format..
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k292/abs724/Screencaps/Gspot11-14-2009.jpg
Now I am not really sure what I could do with this VOB file. I really don't want to re-encode the video since that will further reduce it's quality..

And problem 2..
Now although I have a DVD player, my PC only has a CD-RW and not DVD-RW. So here I am using those 700MB/80Min CDs. Now one of the movie which I want to move to CD are in two parts. One Part is 780MB and the other is 778MB (DAT files). Will it be safe or even possible to burn these files on those 80MIN CDs using the overburn feature or will I have to resort to another idea in this case. I am using Nero 6 for burning CDs by the way.

[aedipuss]

1) you can use vob2mpg and get the mpeg out of the vob. then use vcdgear to author.

2) the big ones might be svcd, check with gspot or mediainfo to see if they are 480x480 or 480x576.

[jman98]

VCD uses a different file system format than data discs, so if you burn your DAT files as true VCDs and NOT as data discs they might barely fit without overburning. VCD format uses more of the disc for data and less for error correction than data disc format (ISO9660) so that is why they might fit. If you have to overburn it might be OK, but you have to try and see if it works or not. If you try to burn those files as a data disc, I would be very surprised if even with overburning that you were able to fit each of them on one disc.

[redwudz]

I used to do that all the time when I created SVCDs. I could get ~830MB on a 700MB CD with no problems. I believe it was Mode 2. Look for that in Nero. I never used overburn as it can cause failures at the outer edge of the CD where the dye may not be applied evenly.

[Cornucopia]

That VOB file you've got there is a normal (well, within spec at least) DVD-Video file. Yes, it's MPEG1 video at SIF resolution (352 x 240or288). Whomever authored this used the lowest rez possible for DVD, probably so as to fit as much as possible on a disc. Notice also the AC3 audio - Wouldn't happen on a VCD!

...
Get a DVD-burner, all your problems will be solved...

Scott

[scott274]

Well it turns out, while burning the 780MB VCD image Nero 6 didn't ask for any overburning option. So my concerns were somewhat needless after all although I never found that option to enable Mode 2 in Nero 6 (updated) which Redwudz had mentioned..

vob2mpg didn't work as suggested because it just wouldn't detect my VOB file. And yes I checked out both IFO mode and VOBSET mode. It just wouldn't extract anything..
Then I tried Mpg2Cut2 to split the VOB file (to fit on two discs since the whole 1.05 GB will probably not fit on one) and the resultant files were .mpg and not .vob, so that should do it right!

And another question I have is should I author these files as DVD (TMPgenc DVD Author) or as VCD/SVCD (VCDgear). The video is MPEG-2 PS (DVD Mpeg) and the audio is AC3 48000Hz, 128kb/s stereo.

Get a DVD-burner, all your problems will be solved...

Scott

That would indeed solve all my problems but I can't do that yet

[Cornucopia]

Like I said before, that mpg file you had within the VOB file is MPEG1. MPEG2-PS is the PROGRAM STREAM. That's a kind of container format that HOLDS the elementary video & audio streams. A VOB file is a "superset" of MPEG2-PS, which is probably why Gspot call it that (one difference is the fact that true normal MPEG2-PS cannot hold PCM audio, whereas VOBs can).

So, you could go 2 ways: VCD/SVCD or DVD.
If you do the former, you'll have to convert the audio (AC3->MP2), lowering it's quality, plus you may still have total bitrate constraints that require you to either lower the audio bitrate even further, or convert/bitratelower/qualitylower the video! Not such a good idea. Also, if you've got 5.1 AC3, you'd HAVE to downconvert it to stereo.

The better idea would be to put it to DVD (like I said before).

Ok, so you don't yet have a DVD-burner yet. But you can create an authored DVD disc image (ISO) and put it on a flash drive temporarily (playable by VLC, etc).
Or, you can cut it up in Cuttermaran (it does work with Demuxed MPEG2 video+AC3 audio, not sure about MPEG1 video), or maybe Womble. Then author & burn to multiple CDs (as standard DATA CDs of the "Mini-DVD" type).

Scott

[scott274]

The second way of making a DVD disc image seems good. After I have cut the VOB video file, what program could I use to author the individual files to disc images, without any re-compression that is.

[Cornucopia]

All the usual ones listed here, incl. DVDAuthorGUI. And then you should be able to use ImgBurn to burn to CD.

Scott