Where is this vob from - is it a complete vob file, or a fragment i.e. not the start of the movie ?

Try trimming a few frames from the beginning in Womble - basically to force it into re-writing the headers & timestamps in the output mpg file.

Tony

One thing to be aware of is that the VOBs are in sequence. That the first one in the sequence is the only one that's guaranteed to have the proper header information. Also, usually the audio in a VOB is AC3 format. MPEG VCR is a program that comes with MPEG Wizard and it will let you do things like trim an individual mpeg file, separate the audio and video components of an mpeg, or recombine separate mpeg video and audio files. Pretty cool stuff.

Thanks for all the initial feedback. I'm missing something in the workflow process with Womble, so any help I can get would be greatly appreciated. The Womble GUI and the manual (210 pages!)don't really have the common sense flow that Vegas does. I just updated my Womble software to the latest version today, so I'm now all set with that. By the way, I've been using the MPEG Video Wizard for this, not the MPEG-VCR.

1. I have the DVD files in a folder from a copied DVD (nothing illegal, just an old SD project I had rendered to DVD but never backed up). It has vob files, ifo, and bup. I can't drag them all onto the Womble timeline, as some of them are the main menu vob's, etc.

2. What I did (which didn't work in Vegas) is that I took the main vob files (3 out of the 15) that contained the footage from the main movie, opened them in Womble to get to the "File" tab, dragged them onto the Womble timeline, and then Exported to a mpg-2 file. So obviously I'm missing Laurence's point of ensuring the VOB's are in sequence. How do you know which one's to drag to the timeline to ensure you have the whole sequence?

I'm not asking that anyone spoonfeed me here (well, today I am, but then I'll take it and run with it!). But that 210 page manual for something that should be relatively simple is just overwhelming and not really easy to figure out.

Hi,

I'm no Womble user but might be of help regarding VOBs. I'm trying to keep it short ... ;)

The naming convention for VOBs looks like this: VTS_xx_y.VOB where xx can be any number from 01 to 99 and y can be any number from 0 to 9.

All VOBs having y = 0 contain menus, nothing more. All VOBs having the same number for xx do belong together (xx represents the title set). A title set can consist of more than one movie (= title in DVD language). On a DVD you'll have IFO (information) and BUP (backup) files additionally and a few more files as well.

Example:
VIDEO_TS.BUP - backup file of the following IFO
VIDEO_TS.IFO - information file, containing information about the so-called video manager domain
VIDEO_TS.VOB - may contain an overall menu (e.g. on mixed aspect ratio DVDs)
VTS_01_0.BUP - backup file of the following IFO
VTS_01_0.IFO - information file for title set 1
VTS_01_0.VOB - menu(s) for title set 1
VTS_01_1.VOB - first part of title set 1
VTS_01_2.VOB - second part of title set 1
VTS_01_3.VOB - third part of title set 1
VTS_02_0.BUP - backup file of the following IFO
VTS_02_0.IFO - information file for title set 2
VTS_02_0.VOB - menu(s) for title set 2
VTS_02_1.VOB - first part of title set 2
etc.

VTS_xx_0.VOBs do not necessarily contain video/audio. They may be dummy entries only. The maximum size of a (standard) VOB is 1GB.

Say, you're having two movies in title set 1. Only the corresponding IFO (VTS_01_0.VOB in the first title set) is carrying the information about where which video begins within the three VOBs belonging to title set 1 in the example. Well, the truth is that you can find the second movie by scanning through the VOBs and by looking for the ID of the title, but only some applications are doing it that way.

In most editors you're fine when only importing the first VOB of a title set, hence VTS_01_1.VOB in this case, and the editors will import the remaining files automatically. Therafter you may start editing. BTW: In Vegas you've got to chose "Import from DVD" (or similar, I've got no English version) and pick the first VOB (or was it the folder?). That should work as well.

In case you are sure that e.g. movie 2 begins in VTS_01_2.VOB you'll most likely have to start your import with VTS_01_1.VOB nevertheless, as the second VOB may begin with an unexpected header or even no header at all. Some NLEs will try to read it, others will simply crash or tell you that the format is not supported.

IFO files do contain all information necessary for any hardware or software player for playing back the DVD. BUP files are copies of the IFOs. They're only there for safety reasons so that a DVD may still be playable even in case an IFO is unreadable due to a scratch. Normally BUPs follow the last entry of a title set to keep them physically away from the IFO.

Hope that helps.

Cheers

darkframe

I use Womble Mpeg Video Wizard to edit files written to DVD by my Panasonic DVD recorder.

My usage requires an extra step, but it makes writing files that are accepted by both Vegas and DVD Architect a piece of cake.

First step is running the DVD through DVD Decrypter (freeware download) in IFO mode. This produces a single vob file for each title on the DVD.

These are loaded into Womble, where I edit as-necessary, and then simply export to new file, using the "Auto" setting. The result is an mpeg-2 file with embedded audio.

Vegas can use them as-is, but DVD Architect will not recognize the embedded AC-3 audio unless the file extension is changed from .mpg to .vob. (Don't get me started...Grrrr....)