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Sentinel
Premium Member
join:2001-02-07
Florida

Sentinel

Premium Member

Creating/copying DVD?

I have numerous family movies that I burned to DVD's a long time ago using a deck type VHS to DVD copying/burning machine. Plugged tape camera in, inserted blank DVD and DVD burned while tape played. Worked great. No problems. DVDs play back in any DVD player.

But now I want to transfer the DVDs to PC as files that I can edit, send to people or just save/back-up. On the disks are .vob files that appear to be the actual movies. A long time ago in here I was told that all I had to do was copy over the .vob files from the disk to the HD because the .vob files were just mpegs anyway. No "conversion" process necessary really.

I tried it and it seemed like he was right. I just dragged the vob files from the DVD to my PC and they played fine in VLC Media Player. So my guess is that they are some kind of MPEG. I don't know what kind or what proper suffix they should have though. But they played fine if left with .vob extension.

But now I want to send them to family via internet and copy them back to DVDs to send via snail mail but that is not working. Via internet they are very large files and people are having a hard time getting them and saying they can't play them.
Via DVD, when I use BurnAware to burn them to a blank DVD they no longer work. The DVD player says the DVD is bad.

So what am I doing wrong? Do I have to convert them to something or in order to burn them to DVD do I need more than just BurnAware? Do I need authoring software? I thought BurnAware was authoring software?

[I don't know if this is better here or in the software forum so mods please feel free to move it if I'm in the wrong place]

Kilroy
MVM
join:2002-11-21
Saint Paul, MN

Kilroy

MVM

The easiest way would be to use a program that converts the DVD to MP4. I'd recommend HandBreak
Sentinel
Premium Member
join:2001-02-07
Florida

Sentinel

Premium Member

But aren't they already MP4? I was under the impression that, that is what a VOB file is?
TheMG
Premium Member
join:2007-09-04
Canada
MikroTik RB450G
Cisco DPC3008
Cisco SPA112

2 edits

1 recommendation

TheMG to Sentinel

Premium Member

to Sentinel
said by Sentinel:

Via DVD, when I use BurnAware to burn them to a blank DVD they no longer work. The DVD player says the DVD is bad.

You can't just copy the files to a DVD and have it work in a DVD player. The disc needs to be correctly formatted/mastered as a video DVD.

Couple of ways to do that, which should be supported by any half-decent burning software:

A) First save the DVD to an image file (.iso or equivalent). Then, burn the image file to as many DVDs as you want.

B) Most burning software also have a "copy disc" function, which essentially does the same thing as the above but the image file is saved to hard drive only temporarily, and the process is more automated.

Note that this won't work if the DVD has copy protection, but since yours is a home-made DVD it shouldn't have any.
said by Sentinel:

But aren't they already MP4? I was under the impression that, that is what a VOB file is?

MP2 is the codec used to compress/encode the video data. VOB is a container file format used on DVD discs and can contain things other than just the video.

Essentially, it's MP2 on the inside, but contained/wrapped inside a VOB file.

This is why you can't just send the VOB file to people and expect it to work. While 3rd-party media players such as MPC and VLC can handle it no problem, the players that most people use, such as Windows Media Player, won't know what to do with it.

You need software to extract the video/audio into a bare-bones MP2 file, or a more compatible container such as AVI which should work with most player software.
Sentinel
Premium Member
join:2001-02-07
Florida

Sentinel

Premium Member

Thanks very much for that explanation.

With regards to the first part , I don't like the way the original DVD deck authored the DVDs to begin with so just making a direct copy of them is not my first choice. But I guess I am going to have to get some kind of authoring software if I want to change it and re-author it. BurnAware does not seem to do that.

With regards to the second part , I remembered that way way back I asked a similar question in here and I searched for ti and found it. People suggested Avidemux to cut or clip the files and save them in a re-encoded format. Looks like that program is still available so I downloaded it and it works great (still).

JimE
Premium Member
join:2003-06-11
Belleville, IL

1 recommendation

JimE to Sentinel

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to Sentinel
Standard DVD video codec is mpeg2, not mp4.

For the spec: »www.videohelp.com/dvd

mp4 wiki: »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP ··· _Part_14
Sentinel
Premium Member
join:2001-02-07
Florida

Sentinel

Premium Member

Ah, OK. So then what would be the benefit of using HandBrake to change them from mpeg2 to mp4?

Kilroy
MVM
join:2002-11-21
Saint Paul, MN

1 recommendation

Kilroy

MVM

Smaller and play on most devices, Computer, iPhone, iPad, Android.
Sentinel
Premium Member
join:2001-02-07
Florida

Sentinel

Premium Member

Good idea. Probably good for the files I want to send to others.

Using Avidemux seems to save the files as .avi. That is not smaller but by cutting/clipping them they are smaller files anyways. Original vob files are 1GB each because it is 1 long continuous burn. Even though there are like 10 or 15 separate segments or clips on the disk. So clipping them into 10 or 15 separate clips is yielding separate avi files of roughly 150 to 200 MB. Much easier to handle and store and share.

OldCableGuy3
@207.191.193.x

OldCableGuy3

Anon

You could still convert your AVIs to MPEG4 and save a lot of space. Probably between 1/2 and 1/10 the size after conversion.
Sentinel
Premium Member
join:2001-02-07
Florida

Sentinel

Premium Member

But won't that result in quality loss of the file? I mean these files were originally 8mm SD tape, then transferred to DVD and now being transferred yet again to AVI. If I convert them yet again to another format I'm guessing that would result in yet more quality loss due to re-encoding.

JimE
Premium Member
join:2003-06-11
Belleville, IL

1 recommendation

JimE to Sentinel

Premium Member

to Sentinel
Should be minimal. But you sill have the originals. And quality will vary based on how they are used/played/viewed.
TheMG
Premium Member
join:2007-09-04
Canada
MikroTik RB450G
Cisco DPC3008
Cisco SPA112

1 recommendation

TheMG to JimE

Premium Member

to JimE
said by JimE:

Standard DVD video codec is mpeg2, not mp4.

Woops! Don't know how I forgot about that one. Been so long since I've done anything with DVDs.

Yes, DVD is MP2. Significant space savings with minimal loss of quality by re-encoding to MP4.
Sentinel
Premium Member
join:2001-02-07
Florida

Sentinel to JimE

Premium Member

to JimE
That's true. I'll still have the original full size files. This would be great for sending these files to family.

So what is the best way to do this? Should I clip them into smaller pieces or "scenes" using Avidemux and save as AVI, then use handbrake to convert them to MP4? Would this result in the smallest file size with best quality?

Kilroy
MVM
join:2002-11-21
Saint Paul, MN

Kilroy

MVM

I don't know if DVD Shrink is still supported, but that was what I used to use to reauthor DVD clips. Then you can use Handbrake to encode them as MP4s.

JimE
Premium Member
join:2003-06-11
Belleville, IL

JimE to Sentinel

Premium Member

to Sentinel
I use VidCoder (GUI for handbrake).

There is a guide here: »www.digital-digest.com/a ··· ge1.html