Completely new to IfoEdit - could really do with some advice

[dh2005]

Hey guys,

I'm completely at a loss with around 100 of my .VOBs. Even though they come from an anamorphic source, my PS3 (and even VLC player, on my laptop) cannot recognise them as being anamorphic. As such, I need to zoom the image rather than stretch it, which sucks.

I'm really new to all this, but I've thrown myself into research and done my best on my own - I found a program called DVD Patcher which looked to be the answer to my prayers... but, according to DVD Patcher, these .VOBs are already marked as being 16:9, so there's nothing more that it can do for me (I think, anyway... if anyone knows otherwise, please let me know!).

In desperation, I've downloaded IfoEdit, and I haven't got a clue what to do with it. As I understand it, it's for patching .IFO files - but, if I'm thinking about this correctly, I'm pretty sure that I delete these files after ripping a .VOB, and run the .VOB without them.

Could this explain why these .VOBs don't know that they're anamorphic? Is the critical information stored in the .IFO files that I've dumped? If so, is there some way that I can get the .IFOs onto my PS3 and associate them with the appropriate .VOBs so that they run correctly?

Failing that, can anyone help in a way that I've not thought of...?

Please, if you know what to do, let me know. This is driving me mad.

Thanks,


DH.

[Alex_ander]

Yes, AR is also stored in ifo's with stream attributes for a VTS or a menu. In PGCEdit right-click on the VTST in problem -> select Domain Stream Attributes line and you'll see AR checkboxes.

[dh2005]

Hello,

thanks for getting back to me about this. I need all the help I can get.

I've downloaded PCGEdit and, to be honest, it's bewildering. It looks very powerful and impressive, and I look forward to being able to use it, but it's blowing my mind at the moment.

I need to ask this - will PGCEdit allow me to repair the bad a/r information in these .VOBs so that they can be played back on a PS3? I'm not trying to create disc images to be burned onto DVDs - any fix for this problem is only going to help me if it makes the .VOBs play correctly by themselves.

[r0lZ]

The AR is stored in the VOBs and in the IFOs. The IFO takes precedence, so it should be sufficient to fix it. Anyway, if DVDPatcher says that the VOBs are already in 16:9, there is no need to fix them.

In the right pane of PgcEdit, select any PGC pertaining to the VTST you want to modify. (You can find the main movie easily by looking at the PGC durations or by using the preview.) Right-click on the PGC label, and select "Domain Stream Attributes". Tick the 16:9 box, and save. The aspect ratio will be modified for all titles of the same VTST. (However, usually, the main movie is alone in its own VTST.)

Note that you cannot normally change the AR of a menu domain (VMGM or VTSM) if it has menu buttons, as the button highlights will be misplaced when you play the DVD.

[dh2005]

Thanks for getting in touch.

I'll give what you've suggested a try and report back.

[blutach]

Originally Posted by dh2005

I'm pretty sure that I delete these files after ripping a .VOB

This is where you are going wrong. To play your DVD correctly, you need these files. Most software players will load VIDEO_TS.IFO to load the DVD and play it correctly from there.

Regards

[dh2005]

Wow! This is the first time that anyone's had any idea about this problem... thank you, everyone.

Actually... you seem like very knowledgeable people, so d'you mind if I ask you all something else?

I'm very new to this DVD-ripping business, and I've been learning as I've gone along. But I've run into a couple of problems that I can't seem to fix. One is the anamorphism problem I've already mentioned, but the other one concerns timecodes.

Sometimes when I rip a .VOB from a disc, the timecode gets messed-up. Like, even though it's a 120 minute movie, VLC and my PS3 report that it's 32:13 long, or 54:12, or something crazy like that, and when I try to play it back it works for a while, but it reaches certain points where the playback locks-up. And it doesn't matter how many times I rip it, or which ripping program I use (Shrink, Fab, Decrypter, Smart Ripper...), the timecode always comes out wrong.

I discovered, through random trial and error, that when I remux these .VOBs to .M2TS files with tsMuxeR the timecodes come out perfect, and the files run from beginning to end... but, at least once in every file I've remuxed, there's a small amount of video break-up - artefacting, like you might get when watching a damaged DVD. And it's really, really annoying me.

Is there another program you would recommend, rather than tsMuxeR? Or should I use the .TS container instead of .M2TS? Or is that just the way things go when you remux, and there's nothing that I can do about it?

Sorry for getting off the initial topic, but whenever I ask this question on other forums no-one answers me!

Thanks again,


DH.


... oh, and I'll see what I can do re the .IFO files. Though I've a feeling my PS3 won't be interested in looking at subfolders, and will only pay attention to the .VOBs themselves...

[dh2005]

[sigh]

Ya know, I'm pretty close to giving up on this anamorphic problem...

... I re-ripped one of the discs that has this problem ("Zelig", a Woody Allen movie) with DVD Shrink, and I this time stipulated that it should create VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS subfolders. I left the .IFO files (VTS_01_0 and VIDEO_TS) and their back-ups in the VIDEO_TS directory and tried to run the main .VOB (VTS_01_1) back with VLC... and the bloody thing still wasn't anamorphic.

What's more, when I opened these .IFOs with IfoEdit, I found they were already set to 16:9... HOW THE HELL IS THIS POSSIBLE?!?!

Please forgive my impatience, but I've been trying to solve this problem for almost four weeks. It gets a bit much after a while...!


EDIT: Oh, and, for extra amusement... when I open the .VOB files on the original DVD itself with VLC, they're not anamorphic either, and all the .IFOs are set to 16:9. For the love of God, where is this critical information that VLC and my PS3 can't see...?

EDIT EDIT: And when I click the "DVD Play" button in IfoEdit to run the ripped .VOB (VTS_01_01), it is anamorphic. And when I open the "Info -> Video attributes" option, the window contains the following information:

Aspect: 16 x 9
Source Resolution: 720 x 576
Is Source Letterboxed? true


So far as I can see, all the necessary information to run the file anamorphically is there. So why can't my chosen media players do it...?!


[sobbing]

[blutach]

Originally Posted by dh2005

Though I've a feeling my PS3 won't be interested in looking at subfolders, and will only pay attention to the .VOBs themselves...

They are not in sub-folders. They go in the same folder as the VOBs. Explore a commercial DVD using Windows Explorer and see.

Now as to your time codes. Let's assume you have the IFOs. The timing is done from a time map in the IFOs - which is a map of sectors versus time measured in a certain number of seconds per entry - see the VTS_TMAPI part of a VTS IFO. If your IFOs have been deleted, then there is no time map and the timing is taken from the VOBs. If there is only one Vob ID, these will be sequential. This will happen pretty much always on a remux. But some DVDs break the movie in half (particularly at the layer break) and start a new Vob ID there. A new Vob ID restarts off the timing in the VOBs at zero (see?, you really do need the IFOs!). WIthout IFOs to go on, VLC will start the timing off at 0. Of course, you won't be able to seek easily either.

You can read this post for some extra clarification (you should search for things first, btw).

So, I suspect most of your problems are in your ripping techniques - rip the disc in File mode, all files and you should be OK.

As to playback, you should not use a playlist of VOBs. Just drag your folder with the ripped files onto the VLC interface and it will open the DVD.

Regards

[r0lZ]

I agree with blu. VLC can play a DVD perfectly, including the menus, but if you give it only some VOB files, it does what it can do without having the necessary information. Play a DVD as a DVD and things should be fine!

[dh2005]

Thanks again for your informed feedback.

blutach - I assure you that I did search for advice on my problems beforehand. I spent more than two weeks looking for answers before posting anything on forums - I promise! What handicapped me is that, basically, I don't know very much about DVD structure, DVD authoring, DVD anything, so when I performed searches my vocabulary was very limited - I'd search for things like "anamorphic problem .VOB" and get nothing...

r0lZ - I read you loud and clear - it seems that both you and blutach are telling me that I am not going to be able to run these .VOBs anamorphically when they're organised in 'playlist' fashion inside a single directory on an external HDD. Sadly, this is the only way that the PS3 can read them, so my hands are tied. Although I'm curious as to why 60+% of my anamorphic DVD's have produced anamorphic .VOBs, whereas the rest have not... presumably this arises from differences in the way the DVDs they came from were authored - the overwhelming majority of the problematic .VOBs I have are from MGM discs, so clearly, the way MGM write DVDs differs from the way Universal and Warners do it. Pity I couldn't find a way around it, because in other respects the PS3 is proving to be a very graceful and versatile media centre.


As for timecodes...

... I never said that I was certain that I didn't need the .IFOs. I said, in fact, that I was aware that I had been deleting these files and I was curious as to whether important information was within them. As I've just mentioned, I've been deleting the .IFOs because the PS3 (so far as I can tell...) doesn't know what to do with them, so there was no point in having them on there.

But yes - the point about dual-layer movies makes perfect sense to me now that I've had it explained to me. And thank you for that. I noticed from following the link that blutach provided that you, r0lZ, recommend using PCGDemux and Muxman for remuxing. Are the video problems I'm getting from my remuxing caused by tsMuxeR, or will the absence of .IFOs cause these video problems in my remuxed .VOBs no matter what I remux them with...?

Again - curious that some .VOBs from dual-layer discs have perfect timecodes (with perfect seeking too, I might add...), whereas some are broken.

Thanks again,


DH.

[r0lZ]

As the IFOs are tiny files, you should keep them anyway. They may be useful to play the files with another player. And they contain important information. Look at the PgcEdit GUI (which is basically an IFO editor), and you will discover that there are many things in the IFOs! However, a good player should be able to play the VOBs alone, with the correct aspect ratio. Try to patch them with DVDPatcher, to force the 16:9 AR (in the whole files, as it might be insufficient to patch only the first cell.)

As I've explained in the other thread, the break in time codes are not authoring errors. It is perfectly legal (and sometimes necessary) to create several VOB IDs in the same file. The problem is not in the file, but in the player. The Muxman trick should be sufficient to let you display them without problem. I don't know tsMuxeR, so I can't say if it causes problems. Maybe it doesn't copy the 16:9 flag correctly. You might also try VIDChanger, as it patches the files in place and will certainly be much more rapid and simple to use than Muxman, but I don't know if it will be able to change the VOB IDs correctly.

[dh2005]

Thanks again. It helps to have experts on hand.

Yes, I understood about the timecode breaks. You explained that very clearly. And I understand that you can't comment on tsMuxeR, so I'll use PCGDemux and Muxman before bothering you with a question about remuxing again.

As for the anamorphic problem, your most recent comment, "The problem is not in the file, but in the player" is all too correct. A user on another forum recommended I use MediaCoder to transcode my .VOBs and force them to 16:9, to see whether that worked... let me start by saying that it didn't, but something more interesting emerged from the experiment - when I played back my troublesome .VOBs through MediaCoder, they were anamorphic. By which I mean, individual .VOBs with no .IFOs associated with them. For whatever reason, MediaCoder could tell that they were anamorphic from the .VOB alone, where VLC and my PS3 could not. Weird...

I gave DVD Patcher a try a couple of weeks ago. The .VOBs I'm having trouble with are already labelled as being 16:9. I tried patching a whole .VOB file, just to make sure that it wasn't only the header that was tagged as 16:9, but it didn't make a difference... like I said, I tried my best to sort this out by myself before bothering other people. I actually enjoy the problem-solving process of embarking on new projects, but when I run out ideas I get frustrated pretty quickly! That's when I turn to the online community.

[dh2005]

And yet another question - can PGCDemux (v1.2.0.5) be used to demux .VOBs? The top field reads "Input IFO", and can't see .VOBs...

I don't mean to annoy anybody - I've taken on board everything that's been said about the importance of .IFOs, but the fact of the matter is that the PS3 can't use them, so any solution that's .IFO-based is no solution at all. What I need to be able to do is demux a .VOB into its individual streams, then remux them with something that will produce a video file with a good timecode and (ideally...) no artefacting or picture-smearing. If someone can help me to do that, I'll go away happy.

It looks like the anamorphic problem I'm having can't be solved with the PS3's current media firmware. I guess I need to just sit tight and wait for a downloadable update...

[r0lZ]

Oops, yes, we forgot that PgcDemux needs the IFOs. (BTW, it uses them only to know where are the start and end points of the PGCs.)
You can generate new IFOs with IfoEdit. Or perhaps use another demuxer? The important part is the remuxing.

And have you tried VIDChanger? It should not need the IFOs.

[dh2005]

Hello again,

VIDChanger uses .IFOs too, yes. But not to worry. I've re-ripped a disc and left the .IFOs intact, just to see whether this process helps. If it does, I'll re-rip them all, all over again. It'll take time, but I don't mind doing it if I know it'll work.

One more thing about PGCDemux - when I directed it toward the .IFO (VTS_01_0), it found the .VOB (VTS_01_1), but when I processed the .VOB it only produced individual streams of 38 minutes in length, and 2.1GB in size (it got 67% of the way through, then suddenly announced that it was finished). Perhaps this is because PGCDemux is better at processing 1GB .VOBs, rather than single composite .VOBs (the one I'm trying to demux is around 3.4GB).

Never mind. I'll keep trying...

[dh2005]

Seems I'm being foiled at every turn...

... I used tsMuxeR to demux the streams to an episode of House MD (now that I understand that it's the remuxing that's the tricky part), and put these streams into Muxman - which looks like a good little program. I set the remux going, and went away to do something else - when I came back, it had remuxed the video and the audio, but it had created two .VOBs (i.e. it had started a new one after 1GB). This is no good, because the PS3 doesn't link .VOBs on the fly - they're separated by black-outs that make even the worst layer changes look like grace itself.

I seem to recall hearing about a program called VOBMerge (or something like that...) that I assume might be able to assist me here. But if this causes new technical problems, I might just as well have stuck with tsMuxeR - at least that program can create .VOBs of over 1GB!

[sigh]


EDIT: Actually, that's not fair. tsMuxeR can't create .VOBs at all - it creates .ts and .m2ts files...

... sorry for moaning. I've been ill for the last three days, and I've been trying to crack these two problems for weeks. If only I could sort them out, this PS3 archiving idea of mine would be beautiful...!


EDIT EDIT: VOBMerge appears to have worked just fine. The link between the .VOBs is seamless, and the timecode's correct. Now all I need to do is run this file from beginning to end, and see whether there are any video errors in it. If not, we may finally have a breakthrough.

If I ever get this setup running as I'd like, I'll be sure to put together a guide for other people trying to setup their PS3 as a DVD-archiving tool. Then I can go to my grave knowing this suffering wasn't for nothing...!

[blutach]

One more thing about PGCDemux - when I directed it toward the .IFO (VTS_01_0), it found the .VOB (VTS_01_1), but when I processed the .VOB it only produced individual streams of 38 minutes in length, and 2.1GB in size (it got 67% of the way through, then suddenly announced that it was finished).

This is because you have joined the VOBs. Just leave them alone at 1Gb size and PGCDEmux will demux the lot.

If you absolutely need only a single file, join them as your very last step.

If you want a single VOB (after all your machinations), use the DOS copy /b command

copy /b file1+file2+file3 newfile

But the easy solution for you is to buy a real DVD player (they're cheap). Seems SONY is just making life hard for you.

Regards

[dh2005]

Dude, I have a real DVD player. The PS3 itself is a DVD player (as well as a Blu-ray player), and a very good one. What I'm trying to do (sorry if this wasn't clear), is archive as much of my DVD collection as possible onto a couple of external hard drives, so that my discs (of which I have almost 650) can be filed away in storage.

I'm a student, and I'm currently living in a teeny, tiny room with very little shelf space. I tried putting my discs into binders, but these provide poor protection against trauma (in fact, I think some binders actually scratch the discs themselves...), so I decided that backing-up my discs onto HDDs and leaving the discs at my family home was a better way to do it...

... and, when it works, it works beautifully. Seriously - they run flawlessly, and the 400 discs I've backed-up are all accessible from my chair at the touch of a couple of buttons. But these two technical glitches are ruining the party, somewhat!


EDIT: I agree with your sign-off, by the way - cheap media is useless, useless trash.

[dh2005]

I'm playing .VOBs, stored on two 1TB external drives connected to my PS3 via USB, through a widescreen HDTV (yes, I'm a student with an HDTV... what else are summer jobs for, anyway?!).

The performance issues occur whether the files are being run from these external drives, or from the PS3's internal HDD. So, it's definitely not a streaming problem.