"You need to be aware of the frame order of the DVD footage."

...field order...

I've already had a cup of coffee.

Yep, field order. it was early.

:)

Dave T2

>>>You can import the whole file using a trick posted elsewhere on this forum.<<<
DaveT2 is referring to Gary James method.

I have done almost fifty DVD compilations in the past four months. I have a workflow that is fast, and which does not touch one pixel of the original material. It is lightning fast, and works perfectly every time. You do need to purchase one external program from "down under," but that's all.

Here's the workflow:

1. Use a freeware program called DVD Decrypter to copy the entire DVD to your hard drive. No, you are not using this to break encryption, but instead you are using it to make sure the VOB files are concantenated into one file. Use the File mode, and in the Settings --> File Mode tab, change File Splitting to "none."

2. Take the single VOB file (per title) that DVD Decrypter creates and drop that onto the Womble MPEG Video Wizard program (this is the program you need to purchase; you can also buy the cheaper MPEG-VCR program). Have it copy the VOB file to an MPEG-2 file. This may seem like an unnecessary step, but I assure you that it is necessary and avoids all the unpleasantness documented over the last dozen years in this forum and elsewhere where only a few seconds of a VOB file shows up on the Vegas timeline. Sometimes this happens, and sometimes it doesn't. With this workflow, it never happens.

Now, if you do have a workflow that lets you get the VOB file onto the Vegas timeline, and it works reliably for you, then by all means go with it. In my experience, however, every other method of putting DVD files on the timeline fails with some DVDs; this one does not.

3. Go ahead and do all your cuts in Vegas. You can combine clips from different DVDs; you can rearrange the order of clips; you can delete material you don't want, etc. Any "cuts-only" editing you want to do is OK.

4. Save the Vegas project as an EDL (Edit Decision List). This will create a text file that can be read by a simple Womble utility.

5. Download this free utility:

Edl2wbp.zip

Open the EDL file and use this utility to convert the Vegas EDL into a Womble project file. The utility asks you if you want to open the file in Womble. Tell it "no," and instead open Womble project file yourself (the utility is old, and the way in which it opens Womble doesn't work with newer versions of Windows).

6. Use the Export option in Womble to create a new MPEG-2 file. All the work you did in Vegas is now in the Womble timeline, and unlike Vegas which does a terrible job of cutting MPEG-2 files without re-encoding, Womble does it perfectly every time, without touching any of the original video (except for a few frames around the cut points).

You can then use the resulting MPEG-2 file in DVD Architect to create a new DVD. The audio is contained in the MPEG-2 files and is cut along with the video. If you want to do something separately with the audio, you can do that in Vegas, render to an AC-3 file, and then drop that AC-3 onto one of the audio tracks in Womble (which is what is shown below). If you do this, remember to select all the video events on the Womble timeline, right-click on them, and then select Audio-->Mute from the pop-up menu. This will mean that the audio embedded with the original MPEG-2 file is not used.



This shows the Womble interface. You click the Export button (1), and in the Export Save As dialog, you can optionally select to only export the work area (what Vegas calls a "region" and which is pointed to in the photo above). Before you export the file, click on the Detail button and you will see the Export MPEG Detail dialog. If you've done everything correctly, you will see nothing but blue for the audio, and only thin red lines at each cut point. Red indicates re-encoding, and should only happen for a few frames around each cut point. The rest of your video will not be touched and you won't have to worry about upper or lower fields, or anything else.

One final comment: whatever you do, do NOT use VideoRedo instead of Womble. I know that several people here have had lots of good things to say about this program, but it has produced really horrible results for me, many of which I did not find out about until I had shipped the discs to the client. It actually DID screw around with the video and caused pixelization and also dropped frames. I have exchanged almost a dozen emails with their tech support over the past year, and while they are very nice people, they have been unable to fix their product. By contrast, I have used Womble's products for over a dozen years, and while the UI is quirky, the plumbing underneath is really solid.

You can import the whole file using a trick posted elsewhere on this forum.

It appears the link given is wrong. This link points to the original discussion of DVD VOB Importing and my suggestion.

Gary,
sorry, I'd dropped a zero from the end of the original thread link. I corrected the link to point to the most recent thread re your method as I originally intended.

John, an interesting workflow. Couple of thoughts, after playing with the programs for the past hour or so:

(1) That Womble is one weird interface.

(2) I thought I'd be able to save a step by dragging the VOB files to Womble directly at the outset; nope, there's an audio glitch at the transition from one VOB to the next.

(3) I've never used DVD Decrypter to join the VOBs, but instead have relied on a "Join VOB Files Tool" that is freeware also and appears to do a bulletproof job. One possible benefit of the Join tool is that I can work with VOB files already on the hard drive as well as still on the DVD, while I didn't see any way for DVD Decrypter to do the same. And I assume that the Join tool can't deal with encrypted VOBs, but we're not working with any of those here.

(4) I then use Womble to stream-make an mpg file that I can then edit in Vegas (or Womble, for that matter). When in Vegas I save as an EDL file, Vegas apparently assumes the video starts at the extreme left end of the timeline. At least I think that's what's happening; when I ran through the whole process earlier, the resulting Womble project was slightly longer than my original video--I think the EDL list assumed the video started at the left end of the timeline (usually my video projects are not butted up against the left side). So I need to make sure to not leave any gap on the left.

(5) I tried doing a dissolve in Vegas and then bringing that EDL over to Womble. Womble appears to also do a dissolve at the appropriate point, but the results look different. I guess the curves are different.

That Womble is one weird interface.I couldn't agree more. There is something about video editing that seems to make designers think they have license to invent pointlessly unique user interfaces.


I thought I'd be able to save a step by dragging the VOB files to Womble directly at the outset; nope, there's an audio glitch at the transition from one VOB to the next.Yes, this is one of the biggest problems in dealing with VOBs, whether in Womble, Vegas, or anything else. The "open IFO" trick in Vegas sometimes gets around this, but sometimes does not. In Womble, you can manually create an MBS file in Notepad that describes the VOB files, e.g.,

[MBSFile]
NumFile= 4
File= D:\VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_1.vob
File= D:\VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_2.vob
File= D:\VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_3.vob
File= D:\VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_4.vob

You then have Womble open this MBS text file instead of the video itself.

However, this is a pain to do, and I have had this one fail as well. So far, joining using DVD Decrypter has worked 100% of the time (I've done hundreds and hundreds of these re-authored DVD compilations for people who collect old concert and sports films).


I've never used DVD Decrypter to join the VOBs, but instead have relied on a "Join VOB Files Tool" that is freeware also.That should work too, although I like DVD Decrypter because it can do the copy and join operation in one step. Fewer steps = better :)


When in Vegas I save as an EDL file, Vegas apparently assumes the video starts at the extreme left end of the timeline.Yes, that is true.


I tried doing a dissolve in Vegas and then bringing that EDL over to Womble. Womble appears to also do a dissolve at the appropriate point, but the results look different. I guess the curves are different.Yes, some of the other editing commands in Vegas will come across to Womble, but I didn't mention that in my tutorial because, as you correctly point out, there is not always a 1:1 correspondence. If you stick with "cuts-only," then there will be no surprise factor. Having said that, once you do understand how things get subtly changed, you may be able to do the dissolves and crossfades in Vegas (with its infinitely nicer UI) and then have them handled in Womble.

The key thing about Womble is that its "smart rendered" (i.e., no recompression) output is bulletproof: I've never had any glitches or problems. By contrast, Vegas 8 (which had a form of MPEG-2 smart rendering) was full of problems and surprises, and many of the freeware tools I've tried seem to do OK with simple tests, but then break down in the real world.

John, while you were responding I did a slight edit to my post. The Join tool can also pull in the VOB files from the DVD disk directly. Just did it, and it seems to be glitch-free. So either way apparently works.

DVDs don't use timecode as such.
The mpeg-2 encoding used on DVDs makes capturing problematic compared to say DV. You really need to capture intact Groups Of Pictures else you may have frames that cannot be decoded. For the same reason it's quite problematic doing frame accurate editing if you don't want the entire video recompressed and hence incur further loss of quality.

Taking all that on board John Meyer's detailed workflow described in great detail above is what you should be using. Womble is the goto tool. Only yesterday I was asked about editing an old program that was on DVD as part of a fund raiser. All that was required was to remove the black inserted on the original master for ad insert points. As it turned out a serious post house had already offered to do the job for free and they had Womble. I'm going to leave the job in their hands unless we can find the 1" master.

Bob.

For what it does, Womble seems to be pretty cool, though not offering the near-infinite flexibility of the Vegas timeline and tools.

One thing I did notice on a project recently, however, was that when I did a quick patch on a 4GB finished m2v (elementary video) file, the resulting DVD playback showed a very brief glitch at the beginning of the insert point. I think this is because the patch piece might have had a higher bitrate than the m2v file at that point, and the DVD player must have gotten confused. The player by my workstation is a cheapo APEX maybe ten years old. I didn't see the glitch on other players or on WinDVD.