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I'm new to the forum and impressed with the clarity and usefullness of the discussions. I'm not technically sophisticated. My question: I want to edit some VOB files to shorten them. When I do that in PE7, it doesn't give me an option to save the edited version as a VOB file. My choices appear to be AVI (which result in a file that is much larger than the original VOB file), WMV (which is remarkably small is size but with very low quality), or MPG (which is medium sized but for some reason results in no audio). Can anyone help with this?

Hi Sam, Welcome to Muvipix
Thanks for the great comments about the site

To save the files as VOB you will need to burn the project to a DVD Folder.
Share/DVD/Folder, that will put all of the files that would normally be written to a DVD into a folder on your hard drive.

Thanks Chuck. (Sorry about the double-post -- didnt realize there were seperate forums for different PE versions).

I'll try it, but have some questions: 1) How do I know, and what difference does it make, whether to choose the 4.7 or 8.5 folder? 2) Do I check the "Fit contents to available space" box? (what would be the other option?) 3) Should I expect a reduction in file size proportiuonate to the amount i edited out of the original file? 4) Finally, how long should I expct it to take to save one 1G file? Thanks again. Sam

Never mind my last questions. I think I got it. Very much appreciated (and embarrassed I dodnt figure that out myself).

Hi Sam,

No need to double post, but since the topic changed it's best to create a new topic and not tag onto the old one. So this is the preferred location to continue the discussion.

As Chuck pointed out, VOB files are normally part of a DVD structure and are not intended to be written as standalone files. VOB files are a form of MPEG-2 and if you export using Share MPEG you'll get a MPEG-2 file. You should be able to get a similar file size. However, the size may differ from the original vob size because of differences in encoding settings between the two. I'm not sure why you didn't get audio, you should have. You may want to click on the "advanced" button on the share to mpeg panel and verify that both "export video" and "export audio" are enabled. If you are using a VOB from a DVD, it's also possible that the audio soundtrack did not begin in that vob and couldn't be extracted. Do you hear the audio when you preview in PE7?

If you trying to edit and rewrite a dvd, there are programs written specifically for that, for example VideoReDo. It's much easier to use one of those then try to recreate the entire dvd or edit the dvd by hand using some of the software tools available on the Internet (which require a fair amount of expertise).

Not a problem Sam, glad everything is working out. Let us know if you have any other questions, always happy to help

Sam,

Let’s go back to the basics just a bit. As has been stated, a .VOB file is a “Video Object File.” As such, and by the DVD-specs., it can contain quite a bit of stuff. Some of this is beyond just the Audio & Video contained in the usually present MPEG-2 file, which is hidden inside the VOB. This VOB can contain subtitles, Menus, and ROM content, to name but a few. With simple VOB’s, one can often play them, if they are just renamed to .MPEG, though not always. In the case where this works, one does not need a DVD software player. Any player program that can handle MPEG can play the file.

The structure and elements of a DVD-Video DVD-5 (4.7GB, single sided, single layer) will be in most cases:

AUDIO_TS folder (usually empty, as it’s really a carryover from the never fully implemented DVD-Audio). May also not be present.

VIDEO_TS folder, which contains VIDEO_TS.IFO (Video Manager.info), VIDEO_TS.BUP (VMGI.backup), VTS_01_0.IFO (Video Title #1.info), VTS_01_1.VOB (Video Title #1.video), and more of these, incremented by 1. Depending on the number of “titles” on a particular disc, the numbers can range up to the limit of 99. For Projects from most NLE/authoring programs will only have one “title,” so you’ll likely not see more than 4 VOB’s and their accompanying IFO’s and BUP’s. The VOB’s will be approximately 1GB in size.

The title of the “movie” inside the VIDEO_TS folder will be contained in the .IFO and the BUP files. If you open up a DVD-Video in Windows Explorer, you’ll see just the folders, and no name, or anything else. The same is for the file names inside the folder(s). They will look the same for all DVD-Videos, though the exact number of these will differ, depending on the structure and number of discrete titles on the disc. It’s not until one opens the DVD-Video in either a software player, or in a set-top player, that the IFO files will play, allowing the player to then access and work with the .VOB’s, via the instructions that are contained in the IFO and BUP files.

Editing a VOB can be a tricky, as it can contain all those different things. Ripping the MPEG-2 file from the VOB is usually the best approach. That is what PE, or other NLE’s (Non Linear Editor) attempt to do. Sometimes, it works fine, but sometimes it does not. Another problem can be when there are multiple VOB’s, as the MPEG-2 files can span multiple VOB’s, as they cannot contain more than about 1GB of data.

Once one has edited the Audio & Video contained in the .VOB(s), the process to get the resulting Project back into DVD-Video form is to Burn to DVD. This is the authoring process.

Three things happen:

1.) The edited file is Transcoded to MPEG-2. If you were working from a VOB already, the Audio & Video material has already been Transcoded to MPEG-2, in which there will already be compression of the data. If you do this again, there will be more compression of the data, resulting in a loss in quality. Some NLE’s can do “smart rendering/encoding.” None of the programs from Adobe can do this, as they are designed to work with material captured from a miniDV tape camera. While they can handle other footage, there will be compromises. When designed, DV-AVI Type II was chosen as the base workflow, because that was what most miniDV tape cameras produced. The introduction of flash memory, miniDVD, and hard drive cameras, plus the introduction of HD, has changed things a bit, and will continue to change them over the next versions of the programs.

2.) The folder structure and the necessary files are created.

3.) The above material is then physically Burned to a DVD-Video, or is copied to a folder on the computer in the required, and necessary form and structure.

In the case of the former, one can then play the DVD-Video via a software player on a computer, or on a set-top player hooked to a TV or display device. In the case of the latter, one needs a software player to play the files in the VOB, with the instructions coming from the IFO, or the BUP files.

Hunt