VOB to single MPEG file (uncompressed) - how?

[MrsUser]

Hello to all you video buffs

I have a video dvd which I copied to my hard disk, i.e. I have the VIDEO_TS folder with the VOB files in it. I want to convert those VOB file segments of the main movie into one big, uncompressed *.MPEG file. I can open and append them in Avidemux, where I chose MPEG as the container format and 'copy' for both audio and video. The video length is displayed correctly and I can play it in Avidemux. However, when I save the MPEG to hdd, the file is missing the audio and is too short, which means it doesn't save the whole movie, about 25% at the end is missing -- and no, I haven't set any edit markers. Are there any alternatives to do this? Any help is appreciated.

[andrew.46]

Try copying to your HDD with dvdbackup, try dvdbackup --mirror and see if that catches all of the dvd...

[MrsUser]

Try copying to your HDD with dvdbackup, try dvdbackup --mirror and see if that catches all of the dvd...

Have you read my post? ^^
I have already copied the DVD to hard disk. And dvdbackup will do just this. But what I need is to convert the *.VOB blocks of the main movie into one single MPEG file.

[evilsoup]

If you know which VOB files you want to copy together - which ones represent the actual film, this is normally the set of VOBs with the most parts - you can just use ffmpeg's concat protocol.

ffmpeg -i 'concat:VTS_01_1.VOB|VTS_01_2.VOB|VTS_02_3.VOB' -map 0 -c copy combined.mpeg

You may need to use '-acodec copy -vcodec copy' instead of '-c copy', you may need to drop the '-map 0'. You can have as many vob files in the concat protocol as you want. To avoid hassle, use the version from this PPA.

[MrsUser]

If you know which VOB files you want to copy together - which ones represent the actual film, this is normally the set of VOBs with the most parts - you can just use ffmpeg's concat protocol.

ffmpeg -i 'concat:VTS_01_1.VOB|VTS_01_2.VOB|VTS_02_3.VOB' -map 0 -c copy combined.mpeg

You may need to use '-acodec copy -vcodec copy' instead of '-c copy', you may need to drop the '-map 0'. You can have as many vob files in the concat protocol as you want. To avoid hassle, use the version from this PPA.

I had no ffmpeg installed, simply tried it with avconv and it works (but without the '-map' parameter only) And the mpeg is obviously correct and plays fine. However, for some reason the audio is out of sync, comes about 2 seconds too early :-/

[andrew.46]

Have you read my post? ^^

Indeed I have, one possibility is that you have incompletely copied your movie to your HDD...

[MrsUser]

Indeed I have, one possibility is that you have incompletely copied your movie to your HDD...

No, it's complete. I can play the copied structure from beginning to end in VLC, nothing missing. Anyway, evilsoup's method works, except for having the audio too early. I'm trying to figure out how to fix that, maybe somehow a delay can be defined, I don't know.

EDIT:
Here's how I did it (copying only the second audio track):

avconv -i 'concat:VTS_02_1.VOB|VTS_02_2.VOB|VTS_02_3.VOB|VTS_02_4.VOB|VTS_02_5.VOB' -map 0:v -map 0:a:2 -acodec copy -vcodec copy combined-only-second-audio-track.mpeg

-map 0:v -- copies all video tracks
-map 0:a:2 -- copies only the second audio track

However, the audio track must be in a compatible format for the container. AC3 is fine. Then I put everything in an MKV with mkvmergeGUI (mkvtoolnix), adding 1000 (ms) in the format specific options of the audio track. Now it's all in one container and in sync

[andrew.46]

There is the -itsoffset option but this can be a bit painful to use...

[MrsUser]

There is the -itsoffset option but this can be a bit painful to use...

Thank you for that hint! It was actually easy to use:

avconv -itsoffset -1 -i 'concat:VTS_02_1.VOB|VTS_02_2.VOB|VTS_02_3.VOB|VTS_02_4.VOB|VTS_02_5.VOB' -map 0:v -map 0:a:1 -acodec ac3_fixed -b:a 192k -vcodec copy combined.mpeg

I've set -itsoffset to '-1' which means the video stream(s) of the input file start(s) 1 second earlier. It doesn't affect the audio streams. And it worked fine, now the video comes 1 second earlier as the audio did and both are in sync now. I also encoded the second audio track to ac3 with 192kbps on the fly. Actually, command line encoding is pretty much awesome and powerful, and in particular also much faster than with GUI. However, it can be a pain to figure out everything manually.

[andrew.46]

Great to hear that it has all worked out for you . If you are really keen on FFmpeg perhaps look up FakeOutdoorsman's wiki page some time soon, grab a recent version of FFmpeg and delve a little deeper into a truly amazing commandline application...