Converting .VOB files to MPEG1 or MPEG2 ??

Thxs Minion!

So you are saying that its impossible to keep the quality if i convert to mpeg? My system is not a dvd player or vcd player but simply a machine that reads compact flash memory card and in mpeg only. So i couldnt change it to mpeg2 format. Any suggestions without really sacrificing that much of quality?

 

yes there will allways be Quality Loss when converting from one Format to another....

If you want to make VCD Mpeg-1 files from DVD"s you can find a guide in the Guides section of this Site and it will compress a DVD down to under 1gb and it should still be Watchable...

You could also just Invest the $30 and Get a DVD player that plays everything.....

 

Yes, I agree that changing from VOB to MPEG results in a loss cause each programme i tried, the end result was a dark production. I filmed while on holiday using Sony mini dvd handycam using four different mini dvds. After I downloaded them to my pc hardisk I edited the VOB files using videoredo. I joined all the edited VOB files into one movie but when I came to author, ecperimenting with different softwares, I alsways got the same dark result.

 

"Well if it is Takeing a couple of hours just to save a VOB file as a mpeg-2 file then it is Because Womble is For some reason re-Encodeing the Files when saveing them which it shouldn"t do unless you changed some of the Output Settings...

I just Tried useing Womble Mpeg2VCR to join 3 VOB files into one Mpeg-2 file and It dit it in about 3 minutes so maybe it is the way you are doing it, so maybe explain How you are doing what ever you are doing in womble"

Hi Minion,

Thanks for you advice.

Sorry I didn't get back to you over this, but I've just had a spell of work in the real world, and only just got back to hobby editing.
What I'm doing is taking a high-quality Widescreen DVD of a Foreign Language movie, and combining it with an appalling Pan & Scan English Language DVD of the same movie, in order to get high quality pictures with English dialogue.
Normally I would edit in Womble MPEG Video Wizard. I would cut picture VOBs on the Picture timeline and mute the sound, because the dialogue track is foreign language. I would then cut English Language sound VOBs on the audio timeline. In a 90 minute movie, I would probably have around 30 to 40 cuts in picture and sound. When I then export the finished .wbp file, it takes around 8 hours to convert to MPEG2 in DVD Pal quality.
So I just did a quick test this morning and joined three VOB files together on the picture track of the timeline, and then exported as MPEG2. The export was as slow as ever, and it looked like it was going to take the usual 6 times longer than the material duration to convert.
So, I'm either using the wrong programme, or the wrong method. Can you please advise me as to how best to proceed?

The other thing, of course, is the sound part of a VOB, what happens to that, and do I need a separate programme to convert the sound?

Obviously what I want to end up with is an MPEG2 picture and some compatible sound that will work together on a Womble MPEG Video Wizard timeline.

 

Thanks Minion, the penny finally dropped. I think I've got it.

You need Womble MPEG2VCR to convert VOBs to MPEG2 with AC3 Audio.
You need Womble MPEG Video wizard to do the editing.

Using MPEG2VCR, you import your VOB file and then save it with default settings to give MPEG2 Video. However, you must change the Audio setting from MPEG2 to AC3, otherwise you get no sound. You then end up with an MPEG2 file containing both picture and sound. The process is very fast. If you play the picture in MPEG2VCR it looks like there's a mesh over it, but with windows media player, it looks stunning.

You then take the new MPEG2 file, and import it into the Womble MPEG Video wizard, where you can edit it with full functionality. For my purposes, I can edit the MPEG2 onto the picture track and mute the sound, and then edit a different MPEG2 onto the sound track to give me English Language with Foreign Picture.
The picture quality at this stage looks and runs much better than the VOB did.

When you export your edit, it exports much faster than before, because it's already MPEG2.

Minion, I can't thank you enough for all your advice. And thanks to the rest of you guys for asking all the right questions and giving all the right answers, even if I didn't understand everything straight away. It feels as though the scales have finally fallen from my eyes, and that I almost know what I'm talking about.
I may be busy for a few years now....

 

IndioB : You would Find everything MUCH Easier if instead of Ripping the DVD to your Hard Drive the way it is so you get a Bunch of Small VOB Files that you Instead Rip the DVD as Just One Single Big VOB file and with Only One audio Track ....

Or better Yet Rip the DVD as One Big M2V Video file and an AC3 audio File and then Import them Both into WMVW2005 and edit them....

This way you do not have to worry about Joining a Bunch Of VOB files together and you won"t have to worry about Foreign audio Tracks....

Most Good Rippers have settings in them so you can Rip the DVD as a Big Vob files as Opposed to a Bunch of Small VOB files and if you Rip to seperate audio and Video Files then you don"t have to worry about Converting VOB to Mpeg-2.....

Cheers

 

Hi Minion,
First of all, let me just make this clear about the Foreign Audio tracks, so that we don't go off in the wrong direction:

I have a Beautiful Widescreen German DVD which only has a German Audio track. I don't speak German.
However, I have a crappy DVD of the same movie in Pan & Scan which has an English Soundtrack.

The job is to find the right programmes that will enable me to import the DVDs onto my computer hard-drive, edit the English soundtrack in sync with the German picture, and then export as MPEG2 so that I can burn the finished movie onto a DVD, and enjoy beautiful Widescreen pictures with English Language.

I already had one successful attempt with one movie where I followed your earlier advice to use WOMBLE MPEG VIDEO WIZARD. I imported two sets of VOBs. I edited the German VOB onto the picture track and muted the sound. I then edited the English VOB onto the sound track in synchronisation. I had to make some cuts in both tracks, because the German version had some scenes that the English version didn't, and vice versa. I ended up with 20 to 30 cuts, and when I exported to MPEG2,it took around 6 to 8 hours.

My time trial on the Womble MPEG VIDEO WIZARD ran out because I got a freelance job, so I only used it for a couple of weeks. Now, five weeks later, I've downloaded it again and I tried your other idea of converting the VOBs to MPEG2 first.
The conversion was really quick - ten minutes or so for a 90 minute movie. I then edited the MPEG2s as I had previously done with VOBs, and then exported to MPEG2. Unfortunately, the export this time took 20 hours and the final result had freeze frames, skip frames and audio drop-outs.
So I went back to using VOBs, and had exactly the same problem.

Naturally I'm wondering if the second download of MPEG VIDEO WIZARD is deliberately faulty to persuade you to buy it, but I'm not buying something that only worked once, until I find out why. I've written to Womble to ask about this, but no reply so far.

I like this idea of yours: "Or better Yet Rip the DVD as One Big M2V Video file and an AC3 audio File and then Import them Both into WMVW2005 and edit them.... ". But I would always have to have the English version with both picture and sound, because synchronisation is easier using picture replacement rather than lip-synching.

Are there any other programmes out there that I can buy or try that will convert VOBs to MPEG2 and AC3 and edit them together?

Thanks - I really appreciate your help here.

 

fantastic thread tyty

 

Well you don"t have to use "Womble Mpeg Video Wizard" you can use "Womble Mpeg2VCR" which is a Very basic Version of the Same editor and has Many of the Same Features.....

I have an Old beta version of it that you can have if you want it, Just PM me with your e-mail address and I"ll send it to you....

Also if Womble is takeing 20 hours to export your File it is because it is Re-encodeing the File for some Reason which it should only do if you are adding an effect through out the entire File which means it has to re-encode the Entire File to add the effect....So if you want the rendering to Be Quick and the Playback Smooth then do not add effects through the entire File...

There is actually a Place in Womble were it will tell you what Parts of the File have to be re-encoded....

Cheers

 

I already have WOMBLE MPEG2VCR. I used it to convert the VOBs to MPEG2 before editing.
I wouldn't use it for editing a new soundtrack onto a picture, because there's no timeline. That's why I prefer the WIZARD.

To sync up the English soundtrack to the German picture, you lay the English Picture onto the Picture track of the timeline, and also onto one of the soundtracks of the timeline. You then take the German Picture, frame match it to the English Picture and replace part of the Picture track onto the timeline. You can't replace the whole picture track unless both versions of the movie are exactly the same length. What might happen is that after five minutes, the English version has a scene that's not in the German version. So you edit the German version over the English up to the point where you no longer have picture match. Then you let the English version run, and picture match for the next bit that you have German for. I was editing a movie whose English version ran for 95 minutes, but the German version which had been edited ran only 80 minutes. In some instances, there were 10 second cuts, in others, up to 2 minutes. Every time the movie went out of sync, I had to make a cut in the picture track. Consequently, the picture track had about 20 to 30 edits. There were also cuts to be made in the Sound track for the same reasons.
I then ended up with a Picture track comprising German and English pictures which I muted. In synchronisation with this, I had a complete sound track, of mostly English, but the odd bit of German where the English version had a scene missing.
I made no other alterations to the tracks, or added any other effects.
I can only assume that the encoding takes so long because the movie had a lot of action and moving camerawork, so that every frame was different to the next.
What I couldn't understand was why the finished exported MPEG2 was stuttering and losing sound. Perhaps this was because the Windows media player and my cpu couldn't keep up with playing the final MPEG2.
Perhaps if I lay the MPEG2 onto a DVD, it'll be fine, but I'll have to see.

Thanks for your advice, once again.

 

The Thing is if you didn"t add any effects to the Video it shouldn"t have taken so long to render, it should have maybe taken 10 minutes because it should not re-encode if there are no effects...

Maybe the Problem is that you are useing Muxed Mpeg-2/Vob files, Try demuxing your Mpeg-2/Vob files into seperate audio and Video files and add them to the Time Line seperately and then maybe it won"t re-encode the whole File....

There are other Timeline Mpeg editors but they don"t have fully woring demo"s available and Most don"t support AC3 audio...I have Both the WMVW 2003 and the 2005 Version and Tmpgenc Mpeg editor and M2-Edit Pro v5.0 all of which can edit Mpeg-2/Vob files.....

If you Clean out your registry you should be able to install the WMVW2005 again....

Cheers

 

Hi Minion, I just got a reply from Womble multimedia. They are suggesting that I should export with "automatic" mode, rather than using a Template, which ends up re-encoding.
I just did a test and it worked. I got a 90 minute movie exported in 13 minutes. Trouble is it stopped ten minutes before the end. So I'm looking at splitting it in two.
I'll do more tests, check back with Womble, and then let you know what's happening.

Thanks

 

Well I could have Told you That....If you select a Template that has Different Specs than your Source Files then it has to Encode your Source Files to Match the Template Specs....In automatic Mode it uses Smart Rendering so it only re-encodes what has been Changed...

I knew you were doing something wrong as In the Years I have been useing Womble it has never re-encoded my Files...

Well I"mm glad you got it Figured out.....Cheers

 

Well, I'm sure you could have told me that Minion. Unfortunately there's always going to be a huge gulf between technical experts like yourself and newbies like me. The problem is that technical experts always seem to assume a level of knowledge in newbies that they actually haven't got. Consequently they find it difficult to explain something in easy-to-understand language. And the newbie really has trouble framing the question properly, usually leaving out what he thinks are unimportant facts that eventually turn out to be the nub of the problem.
But we got there in the end, and I'm very grateful that you stuck with me.
Now that I know what I'm doing,I think I could write a pretty simple idiots guide to the process, and I guess I owe it to the next idiot in-line after me to do so.
I'm going to drop $50 on Womble too, because I can highly recommend this programme now.

 

Well I"m glad you got it worked out and I"m sure other will benifit from this Thread....

Cheers

 

I think I found the right thread. I'm new at this but from reading your responses I guess I need to use mpeg2vcr to converto VOB files to MPEG2 files. What are the pros and cons of converting the VOB files to AVI files for editing and then converting them to MPEG2, DIVX or even VOB files. Also if I do decide to go the AVI route what software do I use. By the way I'm using Pinnacle 9 as my editing software, is that a decent software.

 

The Reason why you don"t want to convert VOB fo AVI to edit and then Back to Mpeg-2 to put back on to DVD is that every time you convert a Video file you Loose a LOT of Quality so you should convert your Files the Least ammount of Times , Preferably Only one if at all...

If you used a Native Mpeg-2/VOB editor you wouldn"t loose any Quality and the rendering would Take Minutes as Opposed to many Hours and something like "Womble Mpeg Video Wizard" can do most anything that Studio 9 can do were editing is Concerned....

Cheers

 

Greetings all. I am a total newbie when it comes to any of this. Here is my question. I have a dvd with a live performance by a band I like. I want to take the sound from the dvd, and convert it over to an mp3.

Is there a quick and painless way of doing it? I realize I have to "demux", can anyone recomend where I should start?

Thanks in advance!