Windows Media Encoder

[bbbngowc]

Anyone know how to convert .vob dvd files using Windows Media Encoder?

[Jeremy]

Are you trying to convert media to VOB or VOB to something else? Please be specific.

[bbbngowc]

Are you trying to convert media to VOB or VOB to something else? Please be specific.

Trying to convert VOB to WMV or ASF

[bbbngowc]

Or any other program that can do the conversion from VOB to WMV

[liquidguru]

i use Canopus Procoder 2.0 (link)

it's not cheap, but it is a fantastic converter, which can convert pretty much anything to anything else

[bbbngowc]

i use Canopus Procoder 2.0 (link)

it's not cheap, but it is a fantastic converter, which can convert pretty much anything to anything else

Thanks. I'll have a look at that.

[Takeshi]

DVDs usually contain menus, extras, multiple audio tracks and angles but wmv doesn't support them. I don't know if Canopus allows you to choose which to include.

You may have to demux the vob into separate audio and video streams first and make a new mpeg or avi. There're free tools to do that.

Windows Movie Maker will at least convert avi to wmv.

[LLXX]

VirtualDub.

[Jeremy]

Converting VOB to WMV is acceptable, but ASF is insulting. You'll want to convert to AVI. DivX looks okay, but XviD looks even better at the same bitrate.. but x264 looks even better than XviD at the same bitrate. The only thing about x264 is that it requires more CPU usage to playback, but the visual quality is worth it.

When you ask for what is good to encode video, you get a different answer from everyone and are no closer to finding a solution than you were when you first posted.

www.videohelp.com

www.doom9.org

You two-stop resource for all your audio/video needs. Make your own solution.

[CoffeeFiend]

Like Jeremy said, there are countless sites with tutorials and help (including forums) - even newsgroups!

But anyways. You need the decrypted VOB files obviously (using favourite decrypting ripper or apps like AnyDVD).

Also, you don't want the menu VOBs, so skip those.

You're left with what is essentially a bunch of mpeg files (albeit with a ".vob" extension).

One thing you'll need is a mpeg2 decoder (codec/filter) if you want to be able to encode it to something else; if your PC plays DVDs or has any popular DVD playing app (like PowerDVD) installed, you should be fine.

Now, your only issue: you likely have a bunch of vobs, and you don't want to encode that in several .wmv files. There's several options, the 2 main ones being:

-when you rip your DVD, use a "merge" option of some sort (or 'no file splitting" or whatever). Not all rippping apps have this though. (Some also will do stream editing, so you can drop audio streams you don't want either)

or

-use some app like tmpgenc (the tools in it - not the encoder) to join 'em (feel free to drop unwanted audio streams here too). There's tons of apps that can do this.

Now just open your one big mpeg file with WME9, and encode away.

As Procoder goes, it does nothing special IMO - besides costing a LOT of money that is (500$)! Considering you can easily do this job using free tools only... Even if I was going to buy some encoding app, I doubt I'd pick that one.

[bledd]

wmv is crap

convert to xvid avi

autogk can do it freeware -google it!

[CoffeeFiend]

wmv is crap

convert to xvid avi

autogk can do it freeware -google it!

wmv isn't your favorite codec, but it ISN'T crap, no matter how you dislike it and want to believe that. It fares pretty good against other codecs (check doom9's codec shootout if you want). And it's particularly good with high-def content, unsurprisingly. And if it was crap, do you think it would be used for both HD DVD and Blu-Ray? Because it is (under the VC1 name), and everyone so far says it looks great.

And there are perfectly good reasons to use the format - like when someone wants to stream using WM Services (we do that a lot).

And codec support is pretty good out of the box - you don't have to tell someone to download codec xyz or codec pack xyz and install that (and hopefully it won't host their system - some bad codec packs often to that) and then hopefully it'll play it - anyone with WMP installed can watch WMV files - which is pretty much anyone with Windows installed (just not the 3 persons or so who might have bought that "N" edition)

If something sucks, I'd say it's autogk. GK is FAR better - you can actually pick what you want (not a one click app, but the results are well worth it). I'd do it all by hand WAY before I'd use autogk.

And if wmv doesn't cut it, then why even bother with xvid which is only marginally better, instead of a true next-gen codec like H.264? (x264 is quite good, so is Ateme)

And while we're talking about crap, avi is not exactly a great container either. More like a hack of an old container to get it to support new codecs. If you didn't want crap, perhaps you'd mention mkv, ogm or mp4...

Use xvid if you want, but let others use whatever they like/want/need...

Edited September 23, 2006 by crahak

[bbbngowc]

Thanks to everyone who contributed. Here's what I did to get the files...

Firstly, let me say that I wasn't trying to pirate any movies, the .vob files that I was trying to get was a DVD recording of an event the company I work for held. With that said, here's what I did:

1. Used DVD Decrypter to rip the files

2. Renamed all of the .vob files to .mpg

3. Used Windows Media Encoder to convert the renamed .mpg files to .wmv

4. Used Windows 2003 Server to Stream the Content

Thanks again for your tips

[Takeshi]

I didn't realise you can just rename vob to mpg.

If there's no copy protection or region code, you could just copy the files directly to HD without using DVD Decrypter.

[LLXX]

I didn't realise you can just rename vob to mpg.

If there's no copy protection or region code, you could just copy the files directly to HD without using DVD Decrypter.

The .vob actually contain more data than a .mpg, it's just that the mpg decoder automatically finds the start of the mpg stream by looking for specific stream and frame headers. This is how fast forward/rewind work without the stream containing any index info (it's just an endless stream).

You can prove this by taking any mpg file and inserting as many bytes at the front of it as you want, and also inserting bytes within the data itself will at worst cause one or two bad frames. The mpg format is very resilient and robust.

Edited September 29, 2006 by LLXX