Trying to edit a DVD-derived video, best way?

spurrymoses · Post by **spurrymoses** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 2:55 pm

I have one general question and then a specific problem

I have an .AVI file encoded with PCM audio and DV.
I created this AVI file myself from a .VOB file (ie a DVD) as a means of avoiding editing compressed files (MPEG2) on the timeline. Otherwise the performance would be understandably and unnecessarily slow.

So, as a result of this situation, I have 2 questions.

1) What would other people do if they had a DVD which they wanted to further edit (it's a home video incidentally, from someone who has a DVD-Recorder/Tape Player in one!).
Would you encode to DV/PCM video as I have done or something else?

2) MediaStudio Pro7 just completely stops reading the audio about half-way through. Inexplicably.
So, on the timeline and when I play it back, about half-way through the audio just stops dead. If I play the AVI file in MediaPlayer, there is audio right-through, no problems whatsoever. The audio is most definitely 'there'. How or why MSP7 chooses to suddenly stop reading it is a complete mystery to me.

Here's a screenshot.

So maybe the answer to (1) will help avoid (2). In any case, help with either would be appreciated.

I'm using WINAVI to convert from VOB to AVI. If I 'split' the files into smaller ones (512MB each) then each file has the some *stop-reading-audio-half-way-through* problem in MSP7.

Devil · Post by **Devil** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 3:19 pm

My guess is that your error is trying to convert VOBs. These were never meant for this, as there is never any guarantee that they form an integral rendering of video, audio and extras.

My suggestion is to convert the whole DVD to an mpg file, as a whole. This can be done with, e.g., MSP8, MF4 etc. If you wish, you can then convert the mpg to a lossless format. Forget the vobs as individual items.

spurrymoses · Post by **spurrymoses** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 3:39 pm

It's almost that simple. But I got the .VOB's from a DVD-R produced by this fancy DVD-Recorder/Hard Drive/Tape machine - which actually had it recorded in UDF format - and all I could get from it using IsoBuster was the .VOB file. So it wasn't a normal DVD to start with and was a puzzle in itself

Besides I'm not convinced that is the problem at all, because the AVI files I have play perfectly in Windows Media Player or any other player. The sound goes right to the end, no errors or problems.

It's only in MSP7 that they audio stops dead half-way through.

Devil · Post by **Devil** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 5:08 pm

You're losing me off, now. I thought all DVDs, VCDs and SVCDs were in UDF?????? Have you tried a DVD>MPG (not a VOB>MPG) conversion with the original DVD? The only thing I can think of, otherwise, is that the disk has not been properly - dammit, I've forgotten the proper term - closed and is still open for more recording. This is an important point.

spurrymoses · Post by **spurrymoses** » Sat Dec 10, 2005 12:44 am

Yeah sorry, I think I'm off and I think the track on the DVD isn't closed off or in some custom format. It certainly won't play in any normal DVD player and Windows doesn't even recognise it as being a DVD - hence why I had to use isoBuster.

But let's forget that. I have a perfectly good AVI file, plays in all programs I have, and the audio cuts half-way in MSP7.

Now I've ripped these AVI files many many times, in various encodings and every single time, the AVI file is perfect, plays in MediaPlayer and MSP7 cuts the audio off half-way through.

I think we have to forget where it came from, since the AVI file definitely is valid.
I think my last resort solution, which is a bit stupid, is load the AVI file into an audio editor and save it as WAV then load it back into MSP7. Although given what's happened so far with perfectly good AVI files, it will cut it off half-way through as well

DVDDoug · Post by **DVDDoug** » Sat Dec 10, 2005 3:00 am

...the AVI file is perfect, plays in MediaPlayer and...

DON'T BE SO SURE! BEWARE OF SNEAKY FILE CORRUPTION! I've had MPEGs that palyed-back perfectly, but sometimes they would cause Video Studio to lock-up, DVD Workshop to crash, or result in DVDs with A/V sync problems.

I'd say you are correct to avoid editing MPEGs. In my case, it was editing MPEGs with Video Studio that caused the sneaky corruption. Ideally, you should not decode/re-code MPEGs because you loose video quality by going-through the 2nd lossy compression cycle. You might be able to avoid the decode/re-code cycle if you only do cutting & splicing.

Back to your problem...
I recently had a "problem" VOB, and I was able to convert it to an MPEG acceptable to Ulead with a free program called SUPER. I believe it performed a full lossy decode/recode cycle, but it was the best solution I found. Maybe SUPER can make your VOB into a "good" AVI.

My VOB had LPCM audio. I didn't like SUPER's audio options (I think it uses an unlicensed AC3 encoder). So, I used VOBedit to extract the audio to a WAV file.

Something was wring with the WAV file header... it played-back at half-speed or something. I fixed it by opening it with GoldWave ($50) and re-saving it.

I edited the MPEG (and WAV) with Womble MPEG Video Wizard ($100) to avoid the sneaky file corruption.

Finally, I used Ulead DVD Workshop to make a DVD.

With all of the experimentation this took me about a month!

spurrymoses · Post by **spurrymoses** » Sat Dec 10, 2005 5:17 am

Yeah, you're right about sneaky file corruption, I can't be too cocky

I'm still trying to solve it with less partitioning of tasks, as you've suggested. But I may resort to the same software so I thank you for it. I've got one more thing of interest...

Here's one possibly interesting thing. Both MSP7 and MSP8 do the same thing - I download the MSP8 trial to test it out.

See the screenshot below which illustrations this situation. Basically the audio does not appear to be corrupt to MSP in itself, that is, there aren't certain sections which are completely unreadable. But the problem is in file-bit chunks - which are produced by WinAVI.

So, I've ripped the file to one big AVI firstly, and secondly, I've ripped it into 4, 512MB chunks. On the timeline below, I've put the 1 big file chunk up top (it has an "Audio heart-attack" at 11m 29sec). Then I take the AVI which is the 4th of 4 512 MB chunks (from exactly the same video) and inserted it below (it has an "Audio heart-attack" at 18min 23). By joining the 4th 512MB chunk with the main one, (and if I then add the 3rd chunk as well) I can eventually get almost the entire video with audio!

With several heart-attacks at 2/3 of the way each time.

So WinAVI is producing files that MSP can't quite deal with, somehow.

spurrymoses · Post by **spurrymoses** » Sat Jan 07, 2006 3:11 am

I was able to solve this problem.
Rather than using WinAVI to convert the video, I used a product called ConvertMovie ($US29.95)and it worked fine - in MSP8. That is, the audio did not suddenly cut-out in the middle of the video after loading it into MSP8.

My subsequent advice is to stay away from WinAVI if possible.
WinAVI also doesn't seem to know exactly what it's doing. It's progress bar gets to 100% and stays there for about 20 minutes while it finishes converting the file. It takes a lot longer than the ConvertMovie product as well. And on at least one occasion WinAVI's uninstall procedure removed my DV codec.

tyamada · Post by **tyamada** » Sat Jan 07, 2006 3:31 am

If you are going to remake a DVD you should try Nero recode. It's easier to use and a lot faster then Ulead. Don't get me wrong because I have MSP8 and VS9 and use them to create DVD but when I want to re make a DVD I use Recode.