Importing .vob

[Cleveland Brown]

Hello fellas, Sorry for being away so long. Busy you know. Anyway I have been asked to help edit a video of someones vacation and she gave me on of those mini DVD's with a .vob format.

"Sony camcorder, DCR-DVD92, which records in .vob format directly onto mini dvds." First of all, I couldn't even watch it unless I changed the region for the DVD viewer. Whatever that means, I can only do it four more times before it locks me into one region forever. Anyway, I can't even look at it with FCP. Can anyone help me? I have no clue what a .vob file is.

Thanks,
Cleveland

[Zach Mull]

A .vob file is the type that DVD-Video uses. It's MPEG-2 video, and the audio stream or streams may be part of the file as well. I doubt you will be able to do anything with it in FCP, but I don't have FCP5, and I know that can edit the MPEG-2 from HDV. You'll almost certainly have to convert it to some type of intermediate format for editing. So you would need something like this: http://mm2d.sourceforge.net. I don't know whether this software is legit because I'm sure it's meant for pirating, but that's what I got on Google. Maybe you could be the first to put it to good use. If this program or something like it supports QuickTime export components then you could convert to DV or some other codec that FCP supports.

[Richard Zlamany]

this might work: change the extension .vob to .mpeg.

[Jonathan Jones]

.vob files relate to the typical file structure system that DVD players read the data from . There are likely a number of reasons that this system is used in the form that it was developed in years ago. Among them are that it is what DVD's have read from for a long time and so for the most part, consumer DVD players will be able to read these as standard - pretty much no matter how old the players is.

Also, it is a little more complicated to pirate from this file structure, although anyone who is into pirating video likely has a multitude of the appropriate tools
.

Thirdly, .vob files separated into both video and audio tracks helps keep file size down for major market video releases that include multiple languages or voice-over tracks. These audio tracks can be layered over the same video track depending on viewing preferences, without needing to duplicate the same video for each version needed, allowing longer movies with multiple audio options to fit onto the standard major market pressed format disc.

There are a number of free downloadable tools that can be used to extract these files available by looking around on the net - but many of them are yet a little buggy or complicated.

There are two consumer oriented DVD extraction applications that you can buy at many computer retail outlets like Comp USA, etc, although they may be a little costly.

They are 'Cinematize 2' by Miraizon, and 'Popcorn' by Roxio. Both of these apps present you with an easy-to-use interface that let you examine the video files in the DVD and extract what you want. They correctly match the audio tracks to the video and generally let you omit various added features that you don't want or lets you choose from among them, such as voice-overs, or language selection, etc. You extract the files into an editable dv stream, but remember that it won't be a clear as the original from the DVD was mastered, simply because the mpeg 2 DVD file was compressed to become the mpeg 2.

These apps are supposed to NOT function for anti-piracy encoded DVD's. While they may extract a file, the video may be unwatchable.

Good luck.
-Jon

[Zach Mull]

Or, apparently, you can use Vegas 6: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...324#post362324.

Jonathan, I learned a ton from your post. Thanks for that.

[Jonathan Jones]

cool.
-Jon

[Martin Mayer]

MPEGStreamClip (here) is a free (and extremely useful) MacOSX utility that will read .vob files and demultiplex them for you into DV streams, QT, MPEG, AC3, AIFF, etc, etc, ....

[Cleveland Brown]

Thanks a million for the replies, they are very informative. That's what I love about this forum. I don't want to screw up my system by introducing programs I know nothing about. I can't afford the commercially available ones at the time. That leaves me with another unmentioned solution which would involve playing them from her camera into my xl2 and capturing from that. By my estimation, it should still look as good as the origianal footage since it is already in a digitized format. If my thinking on this is skewed, are there any other possible options? Again thanks!

Cleveland

[Jonathan Jones]

Originally Posted by Cleveland Brown

Thanks a million for the replies, they are very informative. That's what I love about this forum. I don't want to screw up my system by introducing programs I know nothing about. I can't afford the commercially available ones at the time. That leaves me with another unmentioned solution which would involve playing them from her camera into my xl2 and capturing from that. By my estimation, it should still look as good as the origianal footage since it is already in a digitized format. If my thinking on this is skewed, are there any other possible options? Again thanks!

Cleveland

I can't see why that would not work...give it a try, it seem like pretty smart thinking.
-Jon

[Dave Perry]

MPEG Stream Clip is your ticket. Works great and is free. I use it for what you describe all of the time.

[Greg Boston]

Originally Posted by Cleveland Brown

Thanks a million for the replies, they are very informative. That's what I love about this forum. I don't want to screw up my system by introducing programs I know nothing about. I can't afford the commercially available ones at the time. That leaves me with another unmentioned solution which would involve playing them from her camera into my xl2 and capturing from that. By my estimation, it should still look as good as the origianal footage since it is already in a digitized format. If my thinking on this is skewed, are there any other possible options? Again thanks!

Cleveland

The XL2 will detect copy protection methods on tape or dvd and refuse to record them. If this is the case, you will know immediately because the camera will give you an error message to that effect.

=gb=

[Cleveland Brown]

Originally Posted by Greg Boston

The XL2 will detect copy protection methods on tape or dvd and refuse to record them. If this is the case, you will know immediately because the camera will give you an error message to that effect.

=gb=

What I do not understand then is why a sony DCR-DVD92 video camera that is designed for private use would impiment copy protection on it's DVD's. That would make every single person that bought one tell everyone they know to never buy a sony again.