Dubbing Software?

[videak]

I'm wanting to take out a few frames of video (using VOB files) and convert it back to a vob file (with as little re-processing as possible) Virtual Dub software seems to do this OK except it only seemes to save the result as an AVI file rather than an MPEG2 file or even better straight back to a VOB file. Is there any software that can do this without having to convert to AVI? (I'm not sure I have enough disk space to record to AVI file!)

[manono]

Hi-

You want to cut a piece out of a vob file? Then ChopperXP (http://www.doom9.org/Soft21/Vobtools/chopperxp.zip) should do what you want.

[videak]

Thanks. I have tried Chopper XP which seems to work well, however it doesn't actually cut to frame level which I need for one particular piece of work.

[videak]

I have used IFO Edit to create IFO's for a title set of VOB files. However the chapters are still there and I want to strip them (without having to reprocess the original MPEG files) I thought Chapter extractor might do this, but as far as I can tell it doesn't. I have also experimented with IFOEdit and Vobedit with no success. Any help would be appreciated?

[Dimmer]

If I understand correctly, you want to remove certain segments of the video like special features from a DVD you ripped to HDD. How difficult it's going to be depends on the original VOB structure. Open VTS_01_0.IFO in IfoEdit and look at the list of cells in the bottom panel. It would look something like this:

[Ch 01] [Pg 01] [Cell 01] [V/C Id: 1/1] ...
[Ch 02] [Pg 02] [Cell 02] [V/C Id: 1/2] ...

Important part for our purpose here is [V/C Id: 1/2], which means the cell has Cell Id 2 within Vob Id 1. Double-click on each cell to see the video it contains. Make a list of the Vob Id's of all the cells you want to remove. Now, if none of the cells you want to keep have the same Vob Id as those on your list, you're in luck. Click on VOB Extras button, check Strip VobId's, Correct Vob-Unit Pointers, Correct Original IFO files. Uncheck other boxes in Options, leave VOB Expert portion as is, select a Destination directory. After you click OK, you'll get a list of all Vob Id's, where you have to check those you want to keep and uncheck those on your list to be removed. After a while, IfoEdit will produce a new set of VOB and IFO files in the destination directory containing only the portion of video you selected.

However, if you need to remove only certain cells from a Vob Id, it's a more difficult task. For example, it's possible that all the cells have Vob Id 1. In this case, you still have options. You can change Vob Id/Cell Id for the cells you want to remove using MenuEdit (I didn't try this myself) and then use the method above. Alternatively, you can split the VOBs into separate cells using Demux function in VobEdit, discard the cells you don't need, and join the rest back together, then create new IFOs in IfoEdit. You'll probably have to read some VodEdit guides and search the forums in order to do this successfully.

And finally, you can always re-author your DVD in TMPGEnc DVD Author, which accepts VOB files but keeps only one audio stream and removes subtitles.

P.S. You cannot cut MPEG/VOB files on a frame-accurate level; you have to convert them to AVI first.