DVDX problem

[Bureau2]

i've ripped the video for "adam's song" from the first Blink 182 DVD, [cause all the rips from MTV on the internet are pretty bad] and anyway, smart ripper rips it fine, i can play teh vob in media player no problem, but i open DVDx and open the ifo and it says "unable to read file" i've tried ripping 3 other DVD's and get the same problem each time...... any ideas anyone?

thanks in advance...

[tearex]

This might not be the answer you wanted to hear, but may I suggest just dumping DVDx. It's buggy and the quality it produces is not exactly the best, especially for VCD, SVCD I don't know. TMPGenc is so much better once you understand frameserving.

[Bureau2]

yeah i know, i love that program but is there anyway to convert VOB's to mpg's in that program!?

[tearex]

Well VOBs actually *are* mpegs with a different file extension. If you mean "using VOBs as input files to TMPGenc", either you open them with DVD2AVI, save the DVD2AVI "project file" (extenstion .d2v) and then load the project file into TMPGenc as the source. There's lots of guides on this.

Or you can install AVIsynth2 and its MPEGDecoder.dll plugin, write a short text file called, e.g. "input.avs" with, say, Notepad, and put the following into it:

LoadPlugin("C:\WINDOWS\Desktop\MPEGDecoder.dll")
MPEGSource("c:\windows\desktop\vobs.lst",-2,"decss")

Then use this script file as if it was an AVI input file.

vobs.lst is another text file that has the list of VOB files in it, one filename per line, like this:

D:\VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_1.VOB
D:\VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_2.VOB
D:\VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_3.VOB
D:\VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_4.VOB
D:\VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_5.VOB
D:\VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_6.VOB
D:\VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_7.VOB

"-2" means "search the file to find out the maximum frame number"; if you know that number (e.g. from opening DVDx once and clicking "Whole" in it's Output settings) you can put it in there yourself and it will open the file much faster (but the opening can still take about 40 seconds and you have to access the DVD once in, e.g. PowerDVD or SmartRipper or DVDx to unlock the drive before you opent the script file.)

If your source is not the DVD itself but ripped & decrypted VOBs on the hard drive, leave out the "decss" parameter.

I personally prefer the AVIsynth method as it's consistently faster and less of a hassle than DVD2AVI in my experience.

[Bureau2]

wow, thanks a lot! seriously! thank so much!

[tearex]

wow, thanks a lot! seriously! thank so much!

No problem. and I appreciate your thanks. since I had to find out some things "the hard way" (read: a good few wasted or suboptimal CD-Rs) I might as well pass on what I did find out, like so many others have also done with their immensly helpful guides.

Now I admit AVIsynth isn't necessarily for the faint hearted, since you have to write those scripts. But, those scripts can do pretty much EVERYTHING (except for cleaning up your room - but I'm not yyet sure about that ), and they consistently do it faster and also in better quality than other tools, probably because the AVIsynth guy could devote the time that others spend on making GUIs to actual video related code.

[Bureau2]

yeah! i've wasted a bunch of CD'r's when i was trying to figure out how to make a good, pal only, vcd... my Nero was messing up everything and just made me almost give up on them, i've been able to rip DVD's before... well, the music videos i want off of them but i think that DVDx thing has messed up that time or that, i'm downloading AVIsynth2 and it's MPEGDecoder.dll and i'll have a go at that, but thanks so much for helping!....

[katchupoy]

Tearex,

Have you tried opening VOB file from Tmpgenc?

[katchupoy]

I mean, after smartripper?