Clip and encode a track from a DVD
October 22, 2004 6:03 PM   Subscribe

I have a legit movie produced by my employer on DVD that I need to convert to mpeg (mpeg2 I'm guessing) to upload to the Internet Archive. All the l33t warez converters seem to do divx or vcd or vob. I can't seem to find anything on mac or windows that will do this simple task for me. I just want the 10 minute long movie at track 4 on the disc as a mpeg file. Sounds simple but after using half a dozen apps, I can't seem to get the job done.
posted by mathowie to Computers & Internet (13 answers total)
 
It certainly looks like there's a ton of utilities out there, but I don't know much about any one in particular. DVD VOBs are, to a certain extent, MPEG-2, so the first thing a rookie like me would try would be to rename the files and throw them in your video editing software of choice.

I'm willing to bet this is one of the many things something like transcode would be good for, too.
posted by majick at 6:17 PM on October 22, 2004


Best answer: DVD Decrypter

Excellent app. You'll see how to do it when you look at it.
posted by Mayor Curley at 6:21 PM on October 22, 2004



windows:
Smart Ripper --> Rip track4
DVD2AVI --> Frameserve VOB's
TMPGENC (free version) --> encode to MPEG1

A trial copy of TMPGEnc's higher-end products will encode to MPEG2. But you can do MPEG1 for free anytime.

Here's the guide I learned on. You can ignore steps 4 and 5 since you're not authoring a disc.

Feel free to email me any quesions.
posted by scarabic at 6:31 PM on October 22, 2004


Seconded on DVD Decrypter.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 6:34 PM on October 22, 2004


FWIW, mpeg2 playback is not a standard part of windows systems and, as scarabic says, mpeg1 is also easier to do.
posted by lazy-ville at 6:36 PM on October 22, 2004


Response by poster: Ok, I got DVD Decrypter to make VOB files. Now I'm using something called "#1 DVD Ripper" to make a mpg for a VCD out of it.

I've got a new problem finishing this -- the program insists on having me pick a codec to compress video to. I tried the default DivX but playback in media player 10 locked up on the final file. I picked an innocuous sounding microsoft video codec and it won't open in any video player now.

Still wondering why this is so hard, but whatever.
posted by mathowie at 10:54 PM on October 22, 2004


Doesn't QuickTime Pro do this? It's supposed to be a swiss army knife for this sort of thing... alas, I do not have it handy to double check, since my Windows machine is in re-install limbo...
posted by weston at 11:28 PM on October 22, 2004


On the Mac, try the shareware ffmpegx. Installation is a bit tricky, as you have to download some programs and codecs seperately, but the software walks you through it. It'll open just about anything and do conversion to mpeg2 and many other formats.
posted by teg at 1:28 AM on October 23, 2004


If it's asking you for a codec, it's not compressing into MPEG but rather AVI. You'll need something that can read VOB and compress directly to MPEG. I think TMPEGENC can do this, as mentioned earlier.
posted by neckro23 at 3:01 AM on October 23, 2004


FairUse. Somewhat hard to get hold of, so use your google-fu.
posted by seanyboy at 8:12 AM on October 23, 2004


As mentioned above, TMPGENC is what most use to create MPEG1 files.

But most people don't use MPEG1, because it is crappy compared to modern codecs. The only advantage is that you can play them on anything.
posted by smackfu at 9:29 AM on October 23, 2004


On my Mac, I've used MPEG2 Works with varying levels of success.

They also have a pretty good discussion/support forum.
posted by fletchmuy at 10:20 AM on October 23, 2004


If you have QuickTime Pro, you can extract the VOB with OSEx, demux it with bbdemux and then convert to MPEG whatever with QuickTime Pro.
posted by eustacescrubb at 6:04 PM on October 23, 2004


« Older George W and Vannevar   |   What's the difference between when MF Doom raps... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.