Editing .VOBs created by Panasonic DMR-HS2 (real close!)

[heavyharmonies]

I spent yesterday afternoon... and yesterday evening... and last night... working with video recorded by my Panasonic DMR-HS2 standalone and attempting to edit/author in Ulead MovieFactory 2. Some extremely odd behavior:

The first thing I tried was a 5-minute music video. Imported the VOB from a finalized DVD-R into MF2, got the ubiquitous message about AC-3 not being supported. Proceded to create a menu, made some chapter points and exported/completed the project; it did *not* attempt to re-encode anything. It worked fine! While MF 2's internal burning engine made several coasters, and the .ISO it created would not be read by DVD Decrypter, I was able to simply use the "Make folders" option and create a VIDEO_TS folder on my hard drive, import that into Nero, and burn. The resulting disc played fine in all of my standalone DVD players.

Movies, on the other hand, have me stymied. I've tried 2 different films, both of which were burned on the HS-2 as continuous video (no split chapter points). The .VOB files import fine, with MF 2 creating a chapter point every 5 minutes ala HS-2. I create menu and burn, *but* it wants to "convert" (presumably re-encode) the video, which is very time consuming, and when all is said and done, while the menu works fine, the audio is lost.

I'm not sure what the cause is; I'll play with it some more tonight. Some thoughts:

1. There is a thread here where someone recommends changing some of the options in a "DVMF.INI" file. For some reason, on my system (WinXP Pro), MF 2 does not create such a file (I did a search of my entire system for all .INI files, and viewed all the ones associated with any Ulead apps, no dice).

2. Since the single clip DVD I authored was able to be exported without triggering a re-encode ("Converting..."), I'm wondering what exactly *does* cause the re-encode to be triggered? Might this be the hybrid vs. fixed VBR?

Yesterday was my first day trying this, so I obviously need to spend more time at it. I just feel that I'm *THIS* close to making it work... making plenty of test coasters though. !

[heavyharmonies]

Update:

Getting closer, but no see-gar. Seems MovieFactory 2 is happier with .VRO files (DVD-RAM) than .VOB files (DVD-R).

Here's my workflow at this point:

1. Record 1-hour long music video compilation to HDD on HS-2 in XP mode.
2. "Divide" into discrete videos (may be redundant as well as problematic, see below).
3. Dub to DVD-RAM in high-speed mode.
4. Copy to PC.
5. Rename .VRO to .MPG
6. Import into MF2; it imports as a single long clip (hence the redundancy of step 2).
7. I can go in and "Add Chapters", but one of the drawbacks to MF 2 is that what I wind up with is a main menu that has one thumbnail, and I have to go to the chapters menu in order to access the various videos individually; it would be nice to have them all appear on the main menu.
8. Compile project. It does not re-encode the video (setting the HS-2 VBR setting to "fixed" seems to have solved that problem *whew*), but it *does* multiplex the audio/video.

It burns fine, the menu works fine, but as you go through the various videos, they become increasingly out-of-sync. Grrr.

I'm wondering if this is because of the editing I did in step 2, or the chapters I set in step 7. My next step tonight will be to re-record this same video tape, but do it as one long stream, and omit step 2, relying on step 7 to add chapter points.

This begs the question: if *any* kind of editing of the original video stream on the HS2 (or on the PC) results in out-of-sync audio, how does one edit out laserdisc side flips, excess material at the end or beginning of film, etc.?

What am I missing? I feel that I'm being incredibly obtuse here.

Thanks in advance,

-Dan

[bugster]

Have you tried de-multiplexing the VOB's with TmpGenc mpeg tools and authoring with those (does MF2 accept seperate audio and video streams?)

[next]

This may work for you:

1. Copy the vro file to your pc.

2. Open the vro file in Mpeg2vcr (version 3.13 or above handles vro files)

3. Edit your vro file and save the edits as mpg files - program streams.

4. Demux your edits in mpeg2vcr.

5. Import your files into Spruceup and author to your hearts content.

This process allows you to get creative when it comes to authoring and menus as opposed to the corny menus created with in my case the e30.

One note. Mpeg2vcr v 3.13 or above is one of the few programs I've found that can edit vro files and allow you to import into Spruceup for authoring.


edit here.....sorry I was speaking to importing vro files off of DVD-Ram discs. I reread your thread and saw that you were asking about DVD-R. But give it a try if you have an interest in using DVD-Ram discs for this process. It saves coasters!

[heavyharmonies]

Found the solution. My mistake was in renaming the .VRO to .MPG and importing, when MF2 will accept .VRO files natively. Assuming that all editing is done on the DMR-HS2 before transferring to the PC, it works like a charm with no re-encoding of the video and no audio sync problems.

Thanks,

-Dan