hi, i've been lurking around here for a while but haven't had much to contribute. anyway, i've got a somewhat serious problem and i was hoping you guys could help.

recently i had a hard drive disaster that resulted in me basically losing everything i've produced in the last 6 months (i still have the raw footage on master tapes, but that's not a huge consolation).

luckily, i do have tons of finished stuff burned onto dvd-r (in vob format for viewing on consumer dvd players).

so here's what i'm trying to figure out: what's the best way of converting these vob files to .avi? or even mpeg-2, i guess (though .avi would give me greater editing flexibility). admittedly i'm not an expert on dvd technology, so (hopefully) there's probably an easy way to do this that i just don't know about. any help would be greatly appreciated.

Two suggestions: DVD2AVI will convert the VOBs to AVI but you may have to further process the resulting files - I had to deinterlace to get decent results where any unusual amount of motion was involved. The other route I've used involves having a DVD deck in to my VCR and out to my Sony VX2000. It will convert the analogue signal to digital on the fly, allowing me to capture via Premiere. I could probably go direct from the deck to the camera, but I'm set up this way for other reasons and it works. This approach won't work with copy protected material but that's not what you're working with. Incidentally, I've found that changing the vob extension to mpg allows WMP to play the file, if you have the proper codec, which you will if you have something like PowerDVD on the computer.

David Hurdon

Hi Joey,

Go to doom9.net and get the Gordian Knot system package. This will give you all the tools you need to process your video however you see fit. The best part is, it'f free! It's made up of several freeware programs that will allow you to turn your .VOB in avi. Since you already have the video on DVD, i'm guessing it's not encrypted, which saves you a step. Copy your DVD contents to your harddrive, then use DVD2AVI on the VOB files. This will demux the audio and video, and leave you with a wav or ac3 files (whichever the sound was encoded as) and a .d2v file. To process the d2v file, you can use VFAPIConv.exe (downloaded separately) to convert the file to a "pseudo" avi that Virtualdub can open, or you can use Gordian knot to open the dv2 file, save the file as an AVI Synth file (.avs) and open the .avs directly with Virtualdub. Then you process the file with Virtualdub and turn it into anything you want--DivX, DV, Indeo, whatever. This sounds like a lot of work, but Doom9.net has guides on how to use everything in the package, and you actually spend alot more time waiting for your computer to process the video than you actually spend doing anything. If you have questions, e-mail me at mark@jeffersons.org. I have lots of experience doing this, so let me know. Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Mark

the fastest and easiest solution IMO would be to copy the vobs to your NEW ( ;) ) HDD

now open Vegas and import the VOB to your timeline. Vegas will read it as a MPG2 compliant file with NO AUDIO

Download a program called BeSweet (google it, you cant miss it)
and a GUI to run it

also you will need these associated plugins (available on the besweet site)

Using VOBInput.dll v1.3 by DVD2SVCD (http://www.dvd2svcd.org)
Using azid.dll v1.8 (b825) by Midas (midas@egon.gyaloglo.hu).
Using hip.dll v1.13 by Myers Carpenter <myers@users.sf.net>
Using Shibatch.dll v0.2 by Naoki Shibata & DSPguru (shibatch.sourceforge.net).

strip the audio from the video. using besweet.
You will be left with a raw VOB/s which includes the audio and video as one (duh) but by using besweet you are only extracting the AUDIO (whether it be 5.1 or whatever)
output is assignable to stereo, mono multi mono etc etc even ac3)

these files have the SAME duration as your video, so once ripped off the VOB, import them to vegas and drag them to up as a new Audio track... you can sync the files by zooming in (frame accurate)

Voila instant DVD on your timeline

You can render to AVI (which will take ages) or you can render as a new mpg2. I would suggest a higher bitrate than the original so as not ot incur much reprocessing artifacts.
Video is whats gonna juice out your system.... so it depends if you want an AVI (as mark mentioned) or an mpg output

Im sure VCD help might actually have a downloadable app which allows you to recombine the 2 files, but i havent been tehre for a while.. theyve got SO MUCH there it isnt funny

now render and pray you dont get another HDD failure...

I had a WD 120gb drive die on me JUST before i was gonna render a huge wedding project... needless o say i lost everything and had to recapture and re-edit the whole thing. Not ot mention 30 gb worth of audio as well as Business logos etc etc...

its not good when Hardware dies...

good luck with the salvage job..

Hey does Vegas let you re-capture footage from your tapes? Final Cut Pro does this so you should be able to lose a drive but recover (as long as your project file was not on that drive).

what do u mean recapture tape?
are you referring to file names being associated within the project??
if so yes...

and if the file isnt there when it tries to lauch the project, you can find a replacement and it too will be seen on the timeline with the same characteristics of the original...
Characteristics i mean EDIT PROPERTIES, such as effects filters etc etc

hypothetically, if you had a HDD failure and lost a file called
"CamA clip001" which is used on the timeline, you could recapture that tape, call it the same thing, and open the original project and your edit WITH would be there.
If the original file isnt available, Vegas will offer a repacement or a search facility... you can either lead it to the replacement file, or jsut save your new cpature in the same directory

backing up work with vegas is incredible IMO...

I've been trying to use Gordian Knot to convert VOBs to a DIVx 3.11 AVI file. I've had great success with a small 6mb file but not with a larger 6gb file.

When I encode the 6mb file I slide the resolution slider all the way to the right. The resulting file is about twice as big as the original and slightly better looking than when the slider is left in a more normal range.

However, when I do this with my 6GB file the resulting file is smaller than the original: about 1.6GB and the quality is very poor.

I've also tried using VirtualDubMod, but Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 won't import any of the files output by VirtualDubMod.

What can I do to get a larger/higher quality AVI file?

I've had success with this simple method (which I've mentioned elsewhere on dvinfo to no response):

1) Copy the main VOB files (non-menu, just features) to your hard drive.

2) Rename the VOB files to MPG

3) Open Windows Movie Maker 2 (finally found a use for this application!)

4) Import your MPG files into WMM and place them in the timeline, in order.

5) Export as a DV avi file

In all instances I have used this method, I have had no problem getting a usuable DV file with audio, which I can then edit in Premiere, etc.

Another method I have used (although a little more labor intensive) is a combonation of DGMPGDec (which is an "upgrade" of sorts from DVD2AVI) with AVISynth and VirtualDub. I have only used this method once -- to convert a PAL DVD to NTSC -- but it definitely worked. The Windows Movie Maker method, though, is pretty straighforward and easy, and definitely worth a try.

Thank you for responding. I've never tried renaming the extention before importing into WMM. I'll try it.

Since I sent my previous thread I have found something that has been successful though with one problem. Rather than encoding from Gordian Knot, I save an .AVS file. Then I open the .AVS file using VirtualDubMod (before, I would open the VOB file.) Then I save an .AVI file from there.

Premiere is able to open .AVI files from VirtualDubMod that were first opened as .AVS files. Make sense?

The .AVI files I save from VirtualDubMod I save as Direct Stream files, and therein lies the last problem. The .AVI files end up being huge. I'm talking about a 15 minute video being 15GB large. That would mean a two hour movie would end up being 120GB. So, I'm working on getting the file size lower. I don't know why they're so big.

Nevertheless, I'll give your method a try too. Thank you.

VirtualDub 1.6.1 (or whatever number) has quite a few options for compression -- the default being "uncompressed." Under the Video tab, you can choose "Compression" and pick from a variety of options. (EDIT: I believe you have to download a DV codec, like the free panasonic one, in order to export as DV avi)

In the case of my PAL-to-NTSC conversion, I used VirtualDub to open an avs file, which I deinterlaced and converted to 29.97 fps, and then exported as an AVI using the HuffYUV codec. That avi was then brought into Premiere for further tweaking, then exported as a DV avi file.

I'm still trying to figure out how to output a smaller file from VirtualDubMod. Do I have to select a compression? Direct Stream with no compression produces a very large file and Full Processing without compression an even larger file.

For example, a two hour video recorded to .AVI from an external source will be about 25GB large. But a two-hour video converted to .AVI by Vdub using Direct Stream selected will be 120GB! Why? The recorded video isn't compressed, why should Direct Stream without compression be so much larger? I don't even know what Direct Stream means, so I probably sound like an idiot.

<<<-- Originally posted by Will Turner :

For example, a two hour video recorded to .AVI from an external source will be about 25GB large. But a two-hour video converted to .AVI by Vdub using Direct Stream selected will be 120GB! Why? The recorded video isn't compressed, why should Direct Stream without compression be so much larger? I -->>>

Well, with a two-hour avi coming in at around 25 GB, I would say that it *was* compressed, using the DV codec (which is the standard codec that miniDV uses, for example). DV compresses to about 13 GB per hour.

I am not so familiar with VirtualDubMod, and I have only just recently begun tooling around with VirtualDub 1.6, so I do not know if the options are exactly the same. But as I mentioned above, in VirtualDub 1.6, under the Video tab, you can choose "Compression" and pick from your choice of compression formats. You do this before you try to "Save as an AVI." See if the MOD version has the same option.

All this time I thought my recorded .AVIs were not compressed. So, what Vdub is giving me is truly uncompressed video. That seems to come in around 60GB per hours. Wow.

So, now I have to decide which codec to use from those offered. Can someone recommend one?
Huffyuv
Cenepak
DivX 5.2.1
Microsoft Video 1
Microsoft MPEG-4 Video Codecs V1 and V2

There are others, but these seem like the ones I've read most about. Geesh, I sound like an idiot.

Thank you for your kindness and patience.

I don't have the link right now, but there is a free Panasonic DV codec that, when installed on your computer, will also give you DV avi as a compression option. You should be able to find it via the Tools section of videohelp.com: http://www.videohelp.com/tools

That may be your best option if you are going to edit the video further. If you have the space, huffyuv will probably work as well (I'm not sure, but it might be more like 20 GB per hour for huffyuv, vs 13 GB per hour for DV avi, but don't quote me on that)

Here, found it:

http://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=Panasonic_DV_Codec

as it says, "The Panasonic VFW DV codec works perfect with Virtualdub."

Thank you. I just encoded 13 minutes of video using Huffyuv and the file came to 6GB. That would come to about 24GB/hour. That's still pretty large, but better than 120GB/hour.

Thank you. I did notice at the link you gave me this comment:

"Panasonic CODEC worked perfectly well with VirtualDub, however it adversely affected Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 DV playback and corrupted viewing on external DV devices and export to tape. Re-installing Premiere does not fix the problem, you must manually remove the codec. This CODEC comes with NO UNINSTALLER."

I am using PPro 1.5, so I would want to avoid that problem.

Hmm.. I hadn't seen that comment before. That said, it is just one user's comment, so you never know if it was actually the codec's fault or the user's fault.

Of course, that's also why I built a separate machine to run P Pro 1.5 (as well as AE 6.5). There's nothing but the basics on my new machine, allowing me to fool around with things like VirtualDub and random codecs and whatnot on the older PC (which runs Premiere 6.5, which has not had any problems since installing the Panny DV codec)

As long as you've got space for that extra 10 GB per hour, though, the huffyuv codec might just be enough for you.

Still, I want someone with a more discerning eye than mine to try the VOB -> MPG -> Windows Movie Maker -> DV AVI method and let me know if they see any problems that I don't (new artifacts, etc). Any takers?

Well, I tried it after it was suggested in this post, and I found two significant problems:
1) the video is truncated on the left and right sides.
2) the audio level is reduced significantly.

Both of those problems make that method unsuitable for my purposes.

Will -- you mean when trying to convert the mpg to avi in Windows Movie Maker? Those are two problems I have not encountered. I assume you mean that somehow it cuts off the sides of the image? Strange. And I haven't had any problems with the audio from the conversion, either. But I've only done it a handful of times, so their may be variables in how the MPG or VOB file is created that can effect the output to AVI.

Oh well. Sorry it didn't work out for you. [but I'm glad it still works for me! :) ]

Virtualdubmod is the most straightforward way.

Regarding what compression to select: the huffyuv codec is great quality but (as you know) produces large files. Recompressing with a DV codec will give you much smaller files but with some degradation in quality. So .... you might want to consider one of the mjpeg codecs like Picvideo or mogan multimedia, as these let you vary the degree of compression depending on what trade-off between file size and quality suits you best. (Picvideo at quality 21 is nearly as good as huffyuv).

You haven't mentioned how your audio is encoded - it will be either 48KHz PCM (i.e. a normal wav file), or mp2, or AC3. All the stuff in an earlier post about besweet was good advice IF it is mp2 or ac3 that needs conversion back to wav. But if it is wav already, which is quite possible with home-authored DVDs, then that step isn't needed.

And finally, if you just need to recover mpeg from a vob file then no recompression is necessary - all you need to do is quickly remux the vob using something like "mpeg tools" in Tmpgenc.

I worked on this last night. Huffyuv encoded a two-hour movie at about 30GB. I have a 160GB drive, so this was managable. Yesss!I brought the Huffyuv files into Premiere, edited them and then rendered. The quality is fantastic. Yes, yes, YESSSSS! The final trick was to open the .AVS file, not the VOB file, in VirtualDubMod then encode with Huffyuv.

Many thanks to all who've contributed to my request for help. I've been developing this process and refining it for about three months. Now it looks like I've finally achieved what I've been striving for.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. Thank you, very much.

Will,

Can you post your steps here - I've hacked my way through this process a number of different ways, but I still believe that a better way exists. If you could list out the steps you took with the software used that would help (plus people searching in the future could find the answer in one entry within the post instead of trying to read and interpret the different posts!)

Thanks

My time is pretty limited, so I don't think I can provide every detail. But, I'll do what I can. If you have more questions later, I'll try to answer them, but I qualify that with an admission that I've only been doing video for about three months. I'm still a newbie.

My process uses four pieces of software:
-DVDshrink (DVD Decryptor comes with Gordian Knot which you may use instead of DVDshrink if you prefer)
-Gordian Knot
-VirtualDubMod (it comes with Gordian Knot) and
-Besweet (also comes with Gordian Knot)

I use DVDshrink to rip the VOBs from the DVD. I prefer to rip to one complete VOB rather than several VOBs. That makes the whole process later much easier.

Then I use Gordian Knot. I follow the instructions here:

http://www.videohelp.com/guides.php?guideid=731#731

to process the VOB file.

-Process the VOB file then save the project as a .dv2 file.

-Open the .dv2 file according to the instructions. Follow the instructions for bitrate and resolution. Tip: Slide the resolution slider so that the "Width" is at least as wide as your final video format. For example: My video dimensions are 720 x 480, so I slid the slider until the width was at least 720. On my project it didn't matter that the width in Gordian Knot was less than 480 because the movie was in widscreen, so the gap at the top and bottom wouldn't show anyway. You should experiment for your own best results.

I chose to select the DIVx 3.11 encoder though I don't actually use Gordian Knot to encode the movie. I encode later. Given that I don't know if it matters what encoder I select since I'm not encoding from Gordian Knot, I select that one anyway. Maybe it doesn't matter. I don't know.

-Now save the movie to an .avs file according to the instructions.
DON'T GO ANY FURTHER than saving the .avs file as described in the guide. DON'T ENCODE. Just save the .avs file and then stop and close Gordian Knot. You're going to do your conversion and encoding later in VirtualDubMod.

Note: I decided not to process the audio in Gordian Knot. I had trouble understanding how to do it there, and it was easier to do with Besweet (see below).

-After exiting Gordian Knot, open VirtualDubMod which came with Gordian Knot.

-Now that you're inside VirtualDubMod, open the .avs file you just created. You should see your movie appear in the VdubMod window.

-Next, select "Save As."

-Name the movie.

-Select "Full Compression."

-Select the button to the right to choose the encoder Huffyuv which came with Gordian Knot.

Then click "Save" or "Okay" or whatever button you're supposed to push to begin encoding. Two-hours worth of movie came to about 30GB of hard drive space. That's relatively large, but your're going to render it down to a smaller file later in Premiere, so it's good to first have a large high-resolution video to begin with.

After it's done encoding, close VdubMod.

Now use BeSweet to open the VOB file you ripped from the DVD. Use it to demux (to demultiplex, to separate) the audio. Save the audio in the format you prefer but remember that Premiere Pro can't open ac3 files (Ahhh! Dont' get me started).

-Open Adobe Premiere.
-Import the video.
-Place it in your timeline. You may edit it now or later.
-Adjust the dimentions of the video so it fits within the screen. (Note: Premiere has a Preference setting that will do this automatically for you if you select it before placing the video on the timeline.)
-Export the video as Microsoft DV AVI,
-Select "Add to Project When Finished"
-Select "No Fields (Progressive Scan)

After the movie has rendered and automatically shown up on your Project window, place it on a timeline.
-Delete the first video you imported.
-Import the audio you demuxed from Besweet.
-If you didn't edit the first video, you can now edit this final version.

Voila.

Again, I'm by no means an expert. If anyone reads this and knows of some improvements I can make, please say so.

Let me know if this works for you.

>Then I use Gordian Knot.

Hmmm... I'm missing something here. Why can't you simply open the VOB directly into VirtualdubMod (and resize there if necessary)?

Because Premiere won't be able to import an .AVI that VirtualDubMod created directly from a VOB . Maybe you could get it to work, but I couldn't. Whenever I tried, Premiere brought up a dialog box that said "Importing Files..." and then it just sat there doing nothing. When I tried it the way I described earlier, voila. Premiere could import the .AVI. Let me know if you get different results. Maybe there's a setting I can change that will shorten the process.

OK, I see.

I open my vobs in VDubMod, save with Huffyuv as the compression codec, and they load straight into Premiere. But now that I'm thinking about it, my vobs have pcm audio whereas yours have ac3, so that's the difference probably.

So one possibility would be to demux your vob to separate mpg and ac3 streams, load the mpg directly and convert the ac3 to wav and then load that as well.

But then that would probably take as long as the way you do it now, which works well for you, so I probably havent helped.

Yeah, that makes sense. Can I demux it in VdubMod and by doing so, circumvent Gordian Knot? I don't know if VdubMod can do that.

I just demuxed in VdubMod, but I still can't open the .AVI in Premiere after demuxing. My guess is demuxing doesn't actually affect the VOB file. It just creates an additional file consisting of a copy of the audio from the VOB file. Thus, I still can't open the .AVI.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. What I meant was demux to a separate m2v video stream and ac3 audio stream (I use the "mpeg tools" demux option in Tmpgenc for this).

Vdubmode will convert the m2v to avi, and besweet will convert the ac3 to wav file .

Then load the avi and the wav together into Premiere.

(But as I said, this workflow may actually not be any improvement on your GKnot method.)

I don't know how to do that in TMPEGenc, but I'll give it a try for comparison. I tried using TMPEGenc previously to transcode a video without success, but it just occurred to me that maybe my problem was that I didn't demux to separate video and ac3 audio, and that may be why Premiere couldn't open the resulting file. You may have solved this other problem for me. I'll let you know. Thank you.

Thank you Graham! I've been researching this DVD to AVI conversion process for HOURS and finally came across your suggestion to use VirtualDubMod. It works perfectly for what I'm trying to do. thanks.