no vob cutter works

[PussyCat]

i want to make a "best of scenes" DVD of my fav dvds and hence need to cut out some clips to my hd.

best tool so far for chopping was dvd-shrink. unfortunately also dvd-shrink has the problem, that the ac3 audio is chopped at wrong places, so that the audio is not playable or recognized by e.g. dvd-author.

i also demuxed / remuxed the files. and fixing ac3 header's makes the movie out-of-sync, even the playback stutters.

do you know any tool, that really works for cutting VOBs out of a DVD compilation? i also tried chopper, but this tool suxx. i can't even playback the cut vobs in powerdvd.


thanx for your help

[maa]

Originally posted by PussyCat
and fixing ac3 header's makes the movie out-of-sync
Did you use AC3Fix ? I havn't had that problem....

I saw another method mentioned HERE (http://www.mmbforums.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=24&start=14) but havn't tried it yet.

[PussyCat]

yup. i used it. in fact i could play the movie with sound then, but the movie was interrupted every second.

[Lord of the Discs]

How about ripping only the chapters you need, with Smartripper?

LotD

[PussyCat]

that would work, but i don't need a whole chapter. i only need the sequences i like.

[windtrader]

Try TMPGeng DVD Author.

It will easily allow you to pull in multiple VOB clips, set a start and end point, join them together and create a DVD. It can also easily create a menu that contains an entry for each favorite clip.

btw - what audio synch problem are people having with DVDShrink? I use it all the time with no such problems.

Win2K, sp4, DVD Shrink 3.0 beta 5.

[PussyCat]

TmpgEnc DVDAuthor as cutter? i'll give it a try!

THANX for the hint!

[2COOL]

Originally posted by PussyCat
TmpgEnc DVDAuthor as cutter? i'll give it a try!

THANX for the hint! TDA is so ungodly slow and tedious in cutting. I wished it had a quicker frame viewer. Never use it to cut but I'm sure it works.

[PussyCat]

yup! thanx again! all sounds work correctly. you're right. it's slow. slow, but it worx.

i hope they'll fix the problem in dvdshrink.

[PussyCat]

nope. i must correct myself: it worx but it's far TOOO SLOOOOOW!!!

can't use it.

hmmm ... i just tried to cut a dvdshrink cutted file with tmpgenc author. then i noticed, that there isn't any I-frame in the vob.

is that my problem?

[windtrader]

Based on what is needed here, clipping a scenes from a few movies and stitch tem together, it seems that DVD Author should work fairly well.

Not sure what the slooow comments are about though. I took two clips from one two hour movie but it did not take very long, 2 1/2 minutes. And my system is far from a super speedster.

DVD Author does seem to "frame serve" in its own way. It certainly does not copy the whole title in before doing any editing. Looks like it buils a .ses file that helps it jump and scan through the movie.

If you plan to do a lot of editing then you need a video edititng tool not a DVD authoring tool. Of course, these are far more complex and involved than using something like DVD Author.

[PussyCat]

the slow refers to scene selection. as i read from dvd-rom having a css decrypter behind, it takes an eternity when i move the slider in dvdauthor until it shows a picture.

and then there's no audio either for cutting assistance.

[jfcarbel]

Why not use DVDShrink in Reauthor mode, it is a GOP cutter meaning it does no recoding and is fast. Very nice interface also.

All you need to do is just demux the video and audio from the VOB file when its complete.

[windtrader]

the slow refers to scene selection. as i read from dvd-rom having a css decrypter behind, it takes an eternity when i move the slider in dvdauthor until it shows a picture
Can't you run a decrypter step, save the movie to HDD, then reference the ripped version?

[PussyCat]

Originally posted by PussyCat
the slow refers to scene selection. as i read from dvd-rom having a css decrypter behind, it takes an eternity when i move the slider in dvdauthor until it shows a picture.

and then there's no audio either for cutting assistance.


Nope!!! that was my initial problem. some cuts using dvd-shrink have a bad audio frame => don't work.

and when i demux and use ac3fix, i get a sync error.

i'll try the following solution now: rip the chapters instead of concrete sequences with dvd-shrink (=> fast) and then cut my wanted scene with dvd-author (=> correct).

circumstantial, but i think (hope) it could work.

edit: i just tried it. hmmm ... somehow i think that my dvd is the problem. i try to cut kiss symphonic with dvd author, and it seems, that dvd-author doesn't find any I-frames within 2 chapters! only P and B => cannot cut with dvd author, as it only cuts at I-frames. is that possible that there are no I-frames ???

edit2: nope. i just tried chapter cutting with spiderman dvd. cut last chapter with dvd-shrink. dvd author shows: no audio. and vobrator crashes when i click the audio stream. this suxx.

edit3: now i used dvd decrypter to get chapter 28, i demuxed with vobedit and created a new dvd with ifoedit. result: dvd author doesn't recognize the audio stream. this suxx more than i thought.

is there another easy multi-vts dvd author or is tmpg dvd author the only one?

when i check the ac3 file, i get the following:

File: C:\VTS_01_1.80.ac3
File size: 0 bytes
AC-3 File type: SMPTE time code (0x00)
Total frames: 0
Frame size: 0 bytes
Sample rate: 0 Hz
Data rate: 0 kbps
Audio coding mode: 1+1 (L, R)
Bit stream mode: Main audio service: Complete main
Dialog normalization: Reserved
Center mix: -3 dB
Surround mix: -3 dB
Copyright: Off
Original: Off
Start time: 00:00:0,00
End time: 00:00:0,00
Status: Frame 1
Unknown frame type

[maa]

Originally posted by PussyCat
dvd-author doesn't find any I-frames within 2 chapters! only P and B => cannot cut with dvd author, as it only cuts at I-frames.

No THAT is interesting - it looks like there really is a bug there which causes the illegal GOP message !!!!
I've seen it with several comercially created VOBs and thats why I don't use it - I don't believe it.

[windtrader]

Use VOBEDIT to see if you can find the I frames at the location They MUST be there. I don't see any DVD can playback without I frames. These are critical for the P and B frames to reference off from. They MUST be there which means Author is getting caught up due to some unusual condition.

Since the cutting method seems to keep you in the ditch, how about tearing all down to elementary streams using DVD2DVD and going through the full process.

Specify to keep the interim files. Then you can use an editor like Ulead MediaStudio's Video Editor 7 or Adobe's Premiere to load up assets you want: video, audio, subs. Edit the clips to the frame as you please. You then need to mux it back together. Maybe you could swap in the updated files into the DVD2DVD process and use the recover feature to have it finish building the final files.

Something like Sonic's DVD Producer will allow you to do the muxing and authoring in the same step. Manually trying to run Scenarist may be a bit too much.

Good luck.

I'm running a test on a small clip - will post any news

I've seen it with several comercially created VOBs and thats why I don't use it - I don't believe it. Maa - Just to clarify, you mean that DVD Author since it throws up the illegal GOP error caused by "missing" I frames?

[maa]

No, I got the message about the GOP being too long on comercial DVDs
- thats what I don't believe - havn't checked with Vobedit though.

[Lord of the Discs]

If a GOP is longer than 18 frames for NTSC and 15 frames for PAL then it is
non-standard, but there´s still a chance that some hardware would play it.

LotD

[PussyCat]

am i the only person who cannot cut correctly?

[windtrader]

No, I got the message about the GOP being too long on comercial DVDs Only way this could happen is if the encoder did it. And it would be really crappy encoder to let a file violate such a basic MGEG standard.

Pussycat - I think anyone using the reauthor start/end option is creating bad files, they just are not aware of it since the files created by Shrink are mostly playable. The problem shows itself when one wants to process the files Shrink produced for further manipulation using something like DVD Author.

[windtrader]

FINALLY - A fairly easy workaround to the broken audio problem.

I ran another set of tests and found an easy way to clean up the broken audio created using DVDShrink reauthor start/end.

1) Compile the various clips together using DVDShrink reauthor start/end feature.

2) Run DVD2DVD on each separate clip (VTS) created by DVDShrink. This step fixes the bad audio problem and creates a new set of good ifo and vob files for each clip.

3) Use DVD Author to load the clips created by DVD2DVD. Author as you wish and the final results will be the collection of assorted clips under control of a custom menu structure with good audio.

[maa]

Ah good tip wintrader.....must try that!

[jfcarbel]

I have never heard of any audio sync problems reported with DVDShrink in other threads, however I never used it that often except for a few cuts which it did well.

I wonder if the problem here is with DVDAuthor not accepting a non standard GOP structure that GOP cutting may cause. Have you tried importing these VOB clips that DVDShrink made into DVDLab? DVDLab offers a relaxed GOP setting so it loads in more mpeg2 streams and supports VOB loading. I believe many people use DVDLab to author these type of compilation DVDs you are trying to do. Do a search on "joining VOB DVDLab" and you should find a thread about this.

My gut feeling is that DVDAuthor is just not doing a good job importing in the VOBs that DVDShrink creates, rather than DVDShrink having an audio sync problem.

I have wanted to create a best of surround sound clips DVD so maybe I will try messing with DVDShrink cutting more this week and report back.

[PussyCat]

thanx for the hints. will try em.

the audio is most of the time definitely bad in dvd-shrink. when i demux the cutted vob and analyze the ac3 file, it shows a bad frame.

did anyone make progress with the dvd2dvd inbetween solution? gonna try it this weekend.

[PussyCat]

i give up. nothing worx. bad audio or out of sync :-(

[jfcarbel]

Can someone let ddlooping know this is possibly a bug.

Please report - did you try both 2.3 and beta 3.0? Is it a bug in both?

[windtrader]

This problem has been reported.

http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=24401&highlight=reauthor+problem

[jfcarbel]

You were correct in your post by saying that DVD2DVD accepts the audio because it processes it in a different way. Yes, it basically decodes the stream whereas a DVD Authoring program just reads the stream headers to verify that it is a valid stream and to get some bacic information about the stream.

Since ddlooping stated that the ReAuthor mode does create corrupt audio headers and it will hopefully be fixed in the next release means that they are aware of the problem.

However, for people like me and you who want to author a best of/compilation clips DVD, we are out of luck until it gets fixed. Since we can't use an authoring program to put our clips together with nice menus and navigation. Although I think we can join them and create a simply compilation DVD that will just play all clips in a row when inserted. But I don't know about you but I want a nice fancy first play intro and chapter marks. So I guess I will keep my fingers crossed that DVDShrink fixes this one in final 3.0

It probably is that audio streams do not have a standard summary header at each GOP. Whereas a mpeg stream's GOP header is a start/stop indicator and since DVDShrink cuts on GOP the mpeg stream is valid. But the audio header probably needs to have its begin and end headers manually updated by DVDShrink to comply with DVD standards.