I shot some film in 4:3 format and want to insert scenes or clips from movies (dvd’s) that are in cinema or 16:9 aspect ratio. I’ve tried making avi clips from vob files, encoded in either Xvid or DivX, but these cannot be edited with Sony Vegas Studio 4. I’ve then tried converting the files to mpg but there’s too much video quality loss and I have to manual calculate the aspect ratio when using TMPGEnc. What is the best way to retain the maximum quality and be able to splice a 10 second or 2 minute clip from a dvd / vob file and still be able to use it in Vegas Studio?
Well a VOB File is Basicly just a Mpeg-2 file with Dolby AC3 audio and it is the AC3 audio in the VOB files that is Preventing you from being able to Load them into Vegas Video 4 as it doesn"t support that audio format as the Source audio.... So what you can do that will work is Demux the Vob file into a seperate audio and Video file and then convert the Dolby AC3 audio to Mpeg-1 Layer 2 audio and them Multiplex the Mpeg-1 Layer-2 audio file with the M2V Video file into a Mpeg-2 file and then Load that file into Vegas and be able to edit the file with your other AVI material..... You can use the "Demultiplex" in Tmpgenc"s "Mpeg Tools" to demultiplex the Vob file into a M2V Video file and a Dolby AC3 audio file and then you can use a Freeware audio encoder like "Headac3he" to convert the Dolby AC3 audio file into a Mpeg-1 Layer-2 audio file and then use Tmpgenc"s "Simple Multiplex" to MuX the Mpeg-1 Layer-2 audio file with the M2V Video file and then you can Load the Mpeg-2 file into Vegas and edit it...There will be absolutly no Loss of Video Quality doing this but you will loose some quality when you Render the edited Video in Vegas Video..... Cheers
mencoder.exe -oac twolame -ovc copy input.vob -o output.mpg All done in one go with one app. You can even do it straight from the DVD, selecting which chapter, etc. although not with the above command.
Minion and celtic_d: Thanks so much for your quick response. Minion: Your step-by-step approach seems straight forward. I'll review Tmpgenc's demultiplex tools section and also look up Headac3he for audio conversion. celtic_d: After doing some reading on mencoder I have to say, I'm quite intrigued. http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Mencoder_Introduction_Guide Any other guides on using this command line tool for recommendation? The thought of being able to do it in one simple step, (selecting the specific chapter from the DVD) is really appealing.
No idea about guides. Should also point out that not all things work the same under windows as they do linux.
