Missing footage when importing

Rooster · Post by **Rooster** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 10:35 pm

Hello folks! I am a newbie both to the board and VideoStudio (I'm using version 9 patched). I'm hoping you will be able to help me with a frustrating (and confusing) problem I am having.

Here goes...

I have offered to edit some digital footage a friend shot using a Sony DCR-DVD 92 camcorder. The media he gave me was that of the camera (I believe) which was MiniDVD-R.

Ok, first thing I did was try it in my PC to check it played. Ran it up on PowerDVD with no problem (29 chapters, 30 minutes approx.). He needed the disc back so, as I didn't have any Mini-DVD-R media, I used DVD Decrypter to create an ISO file. I then burnt this out to a full size DVD+R. Tested it on both my PC via PowerDVD and on my Sony DVD player. Both played it with no problem (again, 29 chapters, 30 minutes). As a further backup before giving him the original MiniDVD-R back, I copied the folder structure, VIDEO_RM and VIDEO_TS, to my hard drive. I didn't bother with the DCIM folder as it was empty.

So far, so good. Now to capture it into VideoStudio 9. Ran it up and selected Capture / Import from DVD/DVD-VR and selected the DVD drive (with the DVD in it of course). After a few seconds of DVD drive access I get a pop-up, "Failed to open DVD. Report ID: 0x800408ff(2303)". Tried again but this time instead of selecting the DVD drive I opened it up and selected the VIDEO_TS folder on the DVD (not the backup on the hard disk). Same error.

I trawled through this board looking for similar problems. After reading a number of posts the conclusion seemed to be that VideoStudio can be fussy about the DVD file structure. There were a couple of 'solutions'. I first tried the popular workaround which was to copy the contents of the VIDEO_TS folder to the hard drive, rename the VOB files to MPG and then capture/import them into VS9. Before I reveal the results, here is a list of the files in the VIDEO_TS folder.

VTS_01_1.VOB 1023.9 MB
VTS_01_2.VOB 162.8 MB
VTS_01_0.IFO 80 kB
VTS_01_0.BUP 80 kB
VIDEO_TS.IFO 32 kB
VIDEO_TS.BUP 32 kB

Renamed the two VOB files to VTS_01_1.MPG and VTS_01_2.MPG. Then, I did a 'Load video' into the Library. Both files now showing as thumbnails. Dragged each of them onto the timeline. Huh? First clip (the 1023.9 MB file I assume) shows a duration of 00:03:43:18. The second (the 162.8 MB file) shows a duration of 00:03:26:10. Where has the rest of the footage gone I ask myself? Both clips play ok (included sound in synch) but there are whole chunks missing. It isn't even that the footage has been truncated after 3 minutes, it seems to be random sections missing. Deleted both clips and did an 'Insert media files into the Timeline' (bottom left button). Got exactly the same result. Also opened the first file in Mediaplayer 10. The MPG file was showing as 3:43 duration, same as in VS9. However, when I played it and the green progress bar reached the end (3:43) the footage carried on playing??? Tried it again but this time clicked and dragged the Seek button on the green bar in MP10. Although the 'position' time showed between 0:00 and 3:43, the footage appeared to be scrolling along the whole original 30 minutes.

So, if I view the MPG (renamed from VOB) in Mediaplayer 10 I can view the full 30 minutes (although MP seems confused about the length). The same MPG captured/imported/inserted into VS9 only plays random sections from the 30 minutes, totaling 3:43. It seemed to me that it was some sort of 'indexing' problem or the capture/import process in VS9 was dropping whole chunks.

Next I tried loading the DVD (from the DVD, not the hard drive) into DVD Shrink. This resulted in a pop-up, "DVD Shrink encountered an error and cannot continue. Invalid DVD navigation structure". More evidence of a problem with the 'index' files? After looking around the DVD Shrink forums I came across a program called IfoEdit. This apparently has the facility to create new IFO files which (pardon my ignorance) I assume hold some sort of indexing data. So I give it a go on a copy of the files on the hard drive. The program reads in both VOB files and creates new IFO and BUP files so the contents of the folder now look like this.

VTS_01_1.VOB 1023.9 MB
VTS_01_2.VOB 162.8 MB
VTS_01_0.IFO 28 kB
VTS_01_0.BUP 28 kB
VIDEO_TS.IFO 6 kB
VIDEO_TS.BUP 6 kB

Now to see if I could Capture this into VS9. Ran it up and selected Capture / Import from DVD/DVD-VR and selected the VIDEO_TS folder with the new IFO and BUP files. Hey presto! I get an 'Import DVD' dialog displaying the chapters structure. I'm sorted (or so I think). I notice that there are now 104 chapters listed instead of the original 29 but I guess this was something to do with the default options set in IfoEdit. Clicked on the Title checkbox so that all chapters are selected and click Import. File imports ok and appears as a thumbnail. With building excitement I drag it to the Timeline. Head drops. Duration shows as 00:06:59:01, roughly the same as two imported MPGs (renamed from VOB) from the earlier test but added together. I go and check the size of the VS9 imported MPG file (i.e. the file now in the Library) and it is 1.14 GB, which seems about right if you add together the original two VOB files. Play it in Mediaplayer 10. Duration shows as 6:58 but as before it appears to be the full 30 minutes as I can drag the Seek button and nothing is missing.

And that's where I am up to folks. The VOB/MPG file contains the full footage but when I import it into VS9 (either by inserting VOB files renamed as MPGs, or importing the VOB files from a 'fixed' folder) I end up with 23 minutes missing. And as I said before, it isn't truncated, it seems to be random sections.

Any help figuring out why I don't get the full 30 minutes imported would be greatly appreciated.

Rooster

maddrummer3301 · Post by **maddrummer3301** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 11:48 pm

Hi,

First off, the dvd your working with is known as a +VR disk.
The original Mini-DVD was most likely recorded on a DVD+RW disk.

I've found on my system(s) the latest version of the dvd importing
module fails to load a +VR disk and displays the same error your receiving.
Even if you use Ulead to create the +VR disk you cannot import it.

To correct this I rolled back one file in the ulead DVD directory to a
previous version and that fixed the error and imported the dvd's mpeg2 files.

But, the latest release must have fixed some other problems so I only
use the previous version file if I have to import a +VR disk which I don't usually have to do.

If you want me to email the file to you and how to replace it email me.

Hope this helps,

MD

tyamada · Post by **tyamada** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 12:28 am

You might want to download this: http://www.videohelp.com/~FixVTS/

The utility fixes DVD file structure, might work.

Rooster · Post by **Rooster** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 8:08 am

Thanks for the replies folks.

MD - Thanks, I'll email you.

Tyamada - I have already tried FixVTS but it didn't help.

It is certainly frustrating as I have not had problems importing other DVDs.

Rooster

Rooster · Post by **Rooster** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 12:51 pm

An update to close this down.

MD kindly sent me an earlier version of a DLL but it turned out that I was already running that version.

In the end I used the following workaround to get ALL the footage into VS9.

1. Copied the VIDEO_TS folder to hard drive.
2. Used IfoEdit to 'fix the IFO and BUP files.
3. Opened 'Capture/Import from DVD/DVD-VR'. Selected no more than three chapters each time* for import. After importing them all I had 104 chapters with a total time of 30 minutes.

It made editing a bit fiddly but at least I had all of the footage!

* As I have explained earlier, the original DVD had 29 chapters. IfoEdit chopped these up into, apparantly random, 104 chapters of approx. 20 seconds each. Although the information box at bottom left of dialog show total time for all chapters as 30 minutes, if I select the complete title, or each chapter individually, the import 'lost' 23 minutes.

Rooster