Question: Vob Passthru Video Length times are often wrong...

I always use the Mobile and VOB passthru to capture my DVD's and then stream them to the device of my choice in the house.

However i can get problems when trying to ffw them to specific bits , obviously can't use the next chapter since the chapter marks get stripped out in this process I guess.

I have noticed that on some video's the time shown is much less than is actually captured..

'Scream' for instance shows about 58 minutes yet i have watched it through and it is complete..runs to about an hour and 20!

Also noticed it tongiht with Alfie showing as 1:00:40 when it was 1:38:00 in reality...

I thought it might be a bug in the conversion or the streaming software...I tend to think it isn't the streaming software since i saw the same times with WMP / MCE AND Tversity.

it's such a pain though because you can't FFW beyond the time on the video...it's bizarre....one video shows it as 4 minutes long when it's over 2 hours...

Is this something that can be fixed either in DvDFAb or is it possible to 'hack' the VOB to put the right time in?

I am streaming to PS3 / Xbox 360 AND Philips Streamium (terrible box IMHO)

Any thoughts guys or fixes?

VOB passthrough doesn't change anything about the vob content other than removing any unwanted audio streams and stitching them together. You can get the same results using IfoEdit (stream main movie option).

From what I have determined, FF and RW ability is largely determined by how often key frames are in the video stream. Chapter information is in the IFO files so this is lost when you create a separate VOB file without the DVD structure.

A DVD can be made of multiple different parts put together. My guess is that the shorter time frame happens when the DVD is using multiple parts and header information is only reporting the first part.

DVD authoring seems to be like the wild-wild-west. They only care if it plays in a standard DVD player. Once you start trying to use that video in other ways, the real ugliness is revealed. If you want files that will stream flawlessly then you will almost always need to reprocess and/or re-encode them.

Ahhh that does tend to make sense I can see where you are coming from.

If everything is in the 'mainmovie' 'chapter' then that might explain why some vids are showing the right time and with others made of of multiple 'mainmovie chapters' it only picks up the first time...

So by extrapolating that it might seem that you could then create a 'new' DVD from the extracted VOB via other software and then re-do the DVD mainmovie/VOB passhru since I think you'd only have 1 'chapter' in effect and therefore the time would be right?? Does that make sense?

tbh I don't mind losing the chapter marks from the loss of IFO if I can ffw through it...

I may try this if you think it could be a workaround..albeit slightly longwinded...

The good news is that yes I believe you can update the timecodes which will partially fix the problem. The bad news is that it takes a few steps and it is difficult to keep the audio in sync. The basic idea is to rip the video and audio streams you want, redo the timecodes on the video to be continuous, and then mux the streams back into a single VOB file.

I said partially fix because this will not change the amount of key frames in the original video stream. These are the stop points for FF and RW. From my experience, if there are very few of these in the stream then FF will kind of stall and jump.

If you want to try, here some suggested tools to use (all available at videohelp.com):

• DGIndex using the ripped DVD folder as the source (selecting the main movie VOB files) or using the single vob created by DVDFab.
  • Select the correct audio
  • Use Save Project and Demux Video
  • You can ignore the d2v file created
• GUI_pulldown or DGPulldown to correct the timecodes on the elementary video stream.
• ImagoMPEG-Muxer to mux the correct stream plus audio into a new VOB file.

However, I don't recommend this approach and rarely use it. I've wasted too much time trying to correct audio sync problems. Your best bet is an encoded solution. As of version 5.0.5.5, DVDFab encoding is still geared toward "mobile" devices and is not, IMHO, yet suitable for big screen output. There are many others freely available.

the audio sync bit in that bothers me...I will probabaly see if i can find another solution especially if you have had problems with it before..


THanks for your helpful feedback though..much appreciated..

I've had good luck running the resultant vob through VideoReDo's Quickstream Fix.

I've also heard that MPEG Streamclip works for this as well but, since I already own VideoReDo, I haven't tried it myself.

Now that the PS3 with firmware 2.41 can play VOB content more reliably, this has become more of a problem for me. Fortunately, I think I have found a solution.

Before firmware 2.41, VOB files created using passthrough would often show " - " or some weird value for total length when listed on the PS3 and would not fast forward well.

With firmware 2.41, VOB files seem to show the correct total length in the file listing, but still show incorrect time codes when playing and still do not fast forward.

The following steps seem to correct the remaining problems:

• Create VOB file using DVDFab passthrough as usual.
• Use tsMuxer (version 1.8.4(b)) to create a M2TS from created VOB file.
• Rename M2TS to VOB and discard the META file.

The resulting file is about 2% larger than the original but seems to play and fast forward correctly.

I'd like others to confirm with a wider array of content.

Will try this when i can - not at home for a few days - I can live with 2% if the other stuff is right! I know the movies I have problems with so will give it a go.

btw - What are you using to stream to the PS3?

Well did the TSMUx thing..yep video length now perfect..BUT Audio is about 3 seconds ahead of Video!!!

Thoughts?

Sorry, missed your question the first time around. I have a Synology NAS box that streams everything.

Yah... that's why I rarely do demux/mux operations any more. I find that encoding is much more reliable.

Myself, I just live with the fast forward and rewind problems with files from VOB passthrough. The FF/RW is a bit slow but usually gets there when I need it. After FF, the stream stalls as I press play. To get it out of the stall I press stop and then play again. It's a bit of a hack but works for me. Besides, I usually just play from the beginning to end so smooth FF/RW is not that important.

So we are both living with same probs then..thanks...

I'm streaming with Tversity and it's fine if a bit temperamental at times but it now has a dedicated Machine with loads of RAM so I hope it has settled down..was previously on my kids gaming machine!

May check out your NAS box tho..thanks mate