Newbie with a few questions re image quality

[okieman]

I've been doing audio editing for a long time, but this is the first I've considered video work. Here's my first project. I moved a DVD onto my HD by converting it to several VOB files then re-assembling to one VOB. Not knowing which software is reliable, I used educated guesswork. The result of my conversion shows that I've made at least one mistake. The movie, originally a good quality documentary on PBS, now has image problems when viewed in VLC Player. Along the bottom is some kind of visual distortion/noise and above that a darker line. It's almost like the frame isn't vertically centered, and part of the top is at the bottom. Also, at the top, there's a pale band of color going across like a narrow cloud. It's actual color varies with the scene. Finally, there are parts originally shot in B&W that the film makers tinted in gold so they wouldn't look too stark. All these parts have about six faint bands of pink going across the image. Also in the B&W/gold sections, the left side has a convex black area the extends a little ways into the overall screen image. I may need to start all over, but picking the right software is my problem. In the audio world I found great free products like Audacity to do all kinds of work. I don't know what the equivalents are in the video world. Tried to get a screen capture of these problems but didn't work. Suggestions?

[edDV]

You should be able to extract the VOBs off a DVD with no recode at all. Try DVDShrink. You can also demux the MPeg2 video and AC3 audio and append with no recode.

If your goal is to downsize the DVD using a different codec like h.264, try a program like Handbrake.
https://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/HandBrakeGuide

[Cornucopia]

Start all over.

Get DVDDecrypter. Set it for "IFO Mode". Go into settings and in the IFOMode tab, change the "File Splitting" option to "None" or "Auto" (whichever is available). Click OK to close settings.

Open the original DVD in DVD Decrypter. It will default to showing you the largest VTS, which most likely is the main movie you're looking for. Select it, then click the "Stream Processing" tab. Select each Video stream you want (usually 1) and click the "Demux" option, then select each Audio stream you want and click the "Demux" option.

Set your output destination drive+folder, and click the OK/Go button (the one with the Disc+Arrow+Drive icon. Wait until it's finished. DONE!

Now in your destination directory (along with some other files), you have 1 video stream of ***.M2V (MPEG2 elementary video stream) and 1 or more audio streams of ***.AC3 (or .WAV or .MP2 or .DTS, depending on how the dvd was mastered) elementary audio stream(s).

Get Imago Muxer, and mux your ***.MPG video stream and your ***.AC3 (whatever) audio streams together into a regular .MPG (MPEG2 Program stream). This is now an intact, clean, unified file that you should have no trouble playing in VLC, WMP (with the right codecs installed), or wherever.

Now, were you expecting to edit it as well?...

Scott

[okieman]

Thank you all so much!

[budwzr]

Or just use AutoGK.