conversion help please - .dat to .avi

[boopat]

i have an axtracted .dat file from an xcd. it plays fine. i think it is an ogg encode (going by the sample file) i don't want to burn the xcd i want to convert the .dat i extracted (which is 800 MB in size) to an .avi file using divx 5.0.2. to a file of 700 MB in size.

the copy is wonderful. i don't want to mess with it. i have seen many nice copies using the 800 MB xcd format and would very much like to convert others too.

please help

let me know if more info is needed

and thanks much

[puertorican138]

You can open your .dat file in VirtualDub and save it out as an .avi even though it's going to require re-encoding.

[boopat]

tried opening the .dat in virtual dub but says 'cannot determine file type'

[dcdeveloperx]

maybe u could use vcd gear (www.vcdgear.com) and convert the .dat to mpeg and open it in virtual dub and make it the avi.

[boopat]

no luck

tried the virtual dub solution again with a slightly different .dat (taken from cd rather than extracted) and seemed to be working until i got an error

' MPEG Import Filteracket sync error on packet stream (48339e)'

all the suggestion are appreciated.

any others?

[bilbogod]

This is a fun one to sort out and caused me a lot of headscratching when I first came to do it. The problem is the relative scarcity of Ogg related tools ad those that do exist aint too happy when you have the wrong headers in place. The data is stored in a .dat form on the disk and you have a couple of options to sort this out.

1/ Download AVI2VCD and use the decompressor to give you a pcm wav and the untouched (Xvid file - n.b. It's very likely to be in this format since a bulk standard avi lacks error correction unwise for mode 2 burning).

OR

2/Extract the dat from the file either using Daemon Tools or just copy and paste. Open up Graph Edit, drag and drop in the dat file and go to insert filters - Direct Show Filters and add the following one at a time:- Ogg Splitter,Ogg Multiplexer and then File Writer (note here is where you need to select a file name to save with the correct extension i.e. *Ogg or *Ogm). All you do now is press the play button and wait whist your computer gets busy converting putting the correct headers back in place.
The resultant file should now play in your media player device (with ogg codecs/ Xvid codecs installed) or you can edit it in Virtualdub Ogg support version, or you can simply decompress it as detailed above and hey presto you can now do svcd conversions with it or any other type for that matter.
Seems that this format is catching on big time in the news groups e.g. alt.montermovies.

p.s. There is no point reducing your file to 700Mb since firstly it'll already fit on 1 cd as it was created using mode 2cd maker and also you'd have to reencode which will take a lot of time for worse results.
I hope this info helps, I would have been really glad of it myself.......

[pmcd]

This is a fun one to sort out and caused me a lot of headscratching when I first came to do it.

[ ]

I hope this info helps, I would have been really glad of it myself.......

I have been trying to do this for months off and on and just happened upon your reply. It is the one bit of advice that works! In fact both methods worked for me when a zillion other ways did not. Thank's a lot...

philip

[bilbogod]

Glad the advice helped.........no longer any need to do it the long way that I previously detailed. Just obtain 2 freeware tools. The Riff header to enable your cdrom to understand mode 2 cds with .dat extensions and the dat2file tool to convert from the dat to the original file format.....Just remeber to add the correct extension for the destination file i.e ".ogm"