Tool to change VOB aspect ratio?

[julesh]

Hi, I have a number of VOB files that have an incorrect aspect ratio of 1:1 set for the frames. Does anyone know of a tool I can use to set this to 4:3 without reencoding the entire content? I could just force it to the right value in the IFO file when I master the DVDs, but this seems like a hack, and I'm sure somewhere there's a player that it wouldn't work for...

I'd prefer something that can run in Linux, but Windows will suffice if necessary.

[Krismen]

You can do this in DVD Patcher (http://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=DVDPatcher) (under Windows).

[2COOL]

DVDPatcher will edit the VOBs but will not the associated IFO, in regards to the Display Aspect Ratio (DAR). The players are supposed to ignore the DAR in the VOB and use the one in the IFO. If you play just the VOBs and not the whole DVD, the players would, of course, use the DAR in the VOBs since no IFO is present.

It's easy to change the aspect ratio in your IFO. Just double-click on Video attributes of your Movie in your desired VTS.

http://img50.imageshack.us/img50/3258/screenhunter0017vm.gif (http://imageshack.us)

[SeeMoreDigital]

It's easy to change the aspect ratio in your IFO. Just double-click on Video attributes of your Movie in your desired VTS.What application have you used? ;)


Cheers

[2COOL]

What application have you used? ;) Ooops! :o I was posting too quickly and forgot to mention it. I used IfoEdit in my example.

[manono]

ReStream (http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/downloads/showsoftware_restream_246.html) can do it. You'll probably have to demux first, though. It won't reencode, but just write out a new M2V.

[SeeMoreDigital]

I've been using ReStream and DVD Patcher for quite a while... Shame both tools are not being developed any further :(


Cheers

[julesh]

Thanks for the pointers!

Regarding players ignoring the aspect ratio in the VOB and using the one in the IFO, I don't think this is entirely true... I wrote a disk with the incorrect VOBs but a correct IFO and my player (an Alba) would play it OK start to end, but if I tried to search or jump to a position in the middle, it would hang for a moment and then dump me back at the menu. I think it was looking at the VOB's aspect ratio whenever it skipped any frames in the middle, and deciding that it couldn't play a 1:1 stream. I could probably verify this theory, if I were concerned, by writing a disc with a 4:3 IFO and a 16:9 VOB and see if it switched the display aspect when I tried skipping...

[2COOL]

Regarding players ignoring the aspect ratio in the VOB and using the one in the IFO, I don't think this is entirely true... I learned this tidbit from mpucoder, who I rarely dispute that he is wrong. He even mentions it briefly here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=342992#post342992).

Now, the thing is that all DVD players should abide by the DVD Specs but there are some buggy ones out there. You say your Alba player disregards the IFO's display aspect ratio. I say something is not right.

[clarkth]

I've been looking for a way to join 2+ VOB with different aspect ratios (some 4:3, some 16:9) and burn them to an iso file. Basically I have several movie trailers as VOB (I deleted the IFOs by mistake) that I would like to have in an iso (and eventually burn to a dvd). When I have the VOB's lined up sequentially and run them with Power DVD on my computer, they switch aspect along with the VOB and everything is fine. When I try and combine them with VobEdit.exe, then create the IFO with IfoEdit, the iso I get using DVD Shrink will encode all the files at 16:9 so the 4:3 files are stretched. I've been searching and reading the forum and guides, but haven't been able to find a solution. Any ideas? Thanks in advance for your help.

[r0lZ]

You cannot mix 16:9 and 4:3 videos in the same titleset, because in the IFO, there is only one aspect ratio information for the whole domain.
You should therefore create at least two titlesets, or two different DVDs.

[clarkth]

Thanks for the reply. How would I create 2 or more titlesets?

[r0lZ]

Well, it's not really easy with the available free tools.

I suggest you create 2 DVDs, one 4:3 and one 16:9. It's better to have only one title per DVD, and a chapter point at the beginning of each trailer.

Then concat the two DVDs with DVD Shrink in reauthor mode: open the first DVD in Shrink, and go to reauthor mode. Drag the title from the right pane to the left pane. Navigate to the second DVD, and drag the title the same way. Generate the compilation.

After that, if you wish, you may use the DVD Shrink Remote Buttons macro of PgcEdit, to be able to jump back and forth from the 4:3 and the 16:9 titles with the Title Menu button of the remote.

You may also use a full-featured authoring program like DVD-Lab, but it's not free.

[clarkth]

r0lZ

Thanks for the help. The free method sounds like it will work fine, just a couple extra steps but not too hard. I checked out DVD-Lab, and to do what I'm thinking I would need the Pro version for $200! Just a bit out of my range to make a couple of fun DVDs. Thanks. again.

[julesh]

I learned this tidbit from mpucoder, who I rarely dispute that he is wrong. He even mentions it briefly here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=342992#post342992).

Now, the thing is that all DVD players should abide by the DVD Specs but there are some buggy ones out there. You say your Alba player disregards the IFO's display aspect ratio. I say something is not right.

No, it definitely uses the IFO's aspect ratio... it just crashes if I try to skip a section and the aspect ratio in the VOB is wrong. It looks like if it's 4:3 or 16:9 everything will work fine. I guess it's just objecting to the out-of-spec video stream, which shouldn't work on a DVD at all according to all the documentation I've seen about what is and what isn't allowed.

Oh well. I took DVDPatcher to my streams, and everything's fine now. :)

Regarding producing a DVD with two titlesets using free tools: 'dvdauthor' can do it, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you know what you're doing. I use the qdvdauthor GUI for it, export the project, and then edit the config file by hand to set up the titlesets before burning. I have successfully used this approach to produce a single DVD with one PAL and one NTSC titleset. I guess using it for titlesets with different aspect ratios should be similar.