Imported file length in PRE 13

[tedco]

Hi,

I have a number of old Hi-8 video tape recordings which I have transferred via a hard disk recorder, burned to dvd's on the recorder, and then transferred to my computer ( in VOB-format ). A rather lengthy process, I know but did not want to purchase more equipment to transfer the recordings to my pc, as I already had a hard disk recorder, and the process work's fine - except for one particular file.

This length of this file, when played with Microsoft Media Player, is 53 minutes and 20 seconds.

The corresponding files, VTS_01_1.VOB and VTS_01_2.VOB is 1,048,544kb and 881,538kb respectively.

However, when I add the files to Premiere Elements 13, the recording length of VTS_01_1.VOB is shown as 29 minutes and 02 seconds, but the VTS_01_2.VOB is only 16 seconds long, making the whole recording 29 minutes and 18 seconds - some 24 minutes short.

I did manage to circumvent this problem, as I joined the two VOB-files to one, rather huge file of nearly 2gb but the length of the file is now correct as some 53 minutes.

But I was puzzled as to why the second VOB-file, when imported in to Premiere Elements would only come up as a very short 16 seconds clip.

Any ideas ?

[Bob]

This has to do with how VOB files are created. Per the DVD specification, VOB files cannot be larger than 1GB. If the video is larger than that, it is subdivided into 1GB VOB segments. If the video is less than or equal to 1GB in length, the VOB is a complete file. If the video is longer than that it is chopped into consecutive 1GB segments until the final segment is 1GB or less. In your case, VTS_01_1.VOB is the first segment and VTS_01_2.VOB is the second and final segment. When the video is chopped, no attempt is made to make the segments complete valid standalone video files. The first file abruptly ends at the cut point and the next file continues where the first left off. If you simply place the individual VOBs on the timeline, some content will be lost. Essentially you'll truncate the content at the end of one VOB and the subsequent VOB won't be starting at a valid control block and you will lose an indeterminate amount of audio and/or video. To be processed correctly, the segments must be read as a single file concatenated in sequential order.