Aspect ratio problem of VOB file - editing

sgssh · 10-03-2007, 11:46 AM

All, I captured a home movie with a Sony camcorder in wide-screen which I downloaded into my Panasonic DMR-EZ25 via iLink. I finalised the DVD in the Panasonic.

I'm now editing the movie on my PC but using Nero and tried DVDShrink but they all display the video in 4:3 (16:9 squashed). What can I use to correct the video?

The original DVD plays correctly in widescreen in the DVD recorder!!

thanks in advance.

jaymac · 10-03-2007, 1:44 PM

Think you will find its a panny quirk. If you edit and rerecord to dvd it will playback as widescreen It does the same with tv progammes that are in 16-9 .I dont think you can get round it . Try it just stick your movie unedited on to a rewrite. Assuming your Sony is True Widescreen to begin with. Though why put it to dvd fist can you not capture straight to pc

sgssh · 10-03-2007, 7:38 PM

Jaymac, yes I could use the PC which I normally do but I was trying to save some time!! Transcoding normally takes about 5 hours on my PC. This process eliminates this time and I was hoping that the result would be better.

Is there some Widescreen flag in the VOB that I can alter?

jaymac · 10-03-2007, 10:56 PM

I dont think you can alter the W/screen flag but are you saying it takes 5 hours to capture from your camcorder? Which editing prog are you using

sgssh · 10-03-2007, 11:28 PM

Not quite, it takes about 1.5hours via firewire to download to PC (for 1hour tape). Then after titling and editing (with Windows Movie Maker) it takes a short time to save it. Then with Nero I author the DVD which takes about 5 hours on my Pentium 4 2.4GHz PC (512M RAM) and this outputs the DVD.

With the Panny, it takes the length of the movie to record to a DVD-R then a few minutes to finalise it. The plan was to take this DVD and re-author with new titling and credits and job done! but not quite

jaymac · 10-03-2007, 11:35 PM

I see where you are going but think you may be gaining time at loss of some quality.Nevertheless assuming you ignore the aspect ratio edit author and burn to dvd it should be back in W/screen have you tried that .

sgssh · 10-03-2007, 11:50 PM

Yes, the DVD-R produced from the Panny does display properly ie W/S but when I then import the VOB files to my PC then Windows Media Player/powerDVD display an image with two vertical bars on each side and the image is squashed (people look very thin).

The re-authored DVD also will not then display correctly on the Panny.

jomike · 11-03-2007, 7:53 AM

You can use a fix12c to do this. It is a free utlity. Run it in advanced mode and set the Sequence Header Code to 16:9. Uncheck all the other options, select your source file (ie your VOB that you have copied to the hard drive), tick Spawn Output and hit the Fix It button. It will create another file with the correct PAR. Find it here:

http://www.geocities.com/eby_vdo/

Regards, Mike

sgssh · 11-03-2007, 2:34 PM

Jomike, thanks for this great tip however it fixes the original problem but introduces another, there is no sound??

What now?

jaymac · 11-03-2007, 3:22 PM

Just tried it Vid/Sound perfect. I said earlier it used to be ok when I went back to dvd but I used to do something else possibly Virtual -dub .Nevertheless this is a great tip

sgssh · 11-03-2007, 4:25 PM

All, just to be clear, I have copied the VOB file onto my PC and then I ran fix12c (version v1.5) on it.

Do I need to strip audio from VOB, run fix12c, then somehow combine the audio back?

jaymac · 11-03-2007, 4:34 PM

I downloaded what is said the latest version importd vob file to dicscand followed his instructions selected advance and 16-9 and unticked the boxes/only used a small clip .It worked fine played back on th pc as the file then burned to disc slight flicker on the right hand border other than that ok and audio in sync

jomike · 11-03-2007, 7:38 PM

I have also never had any problems with audio when using fix12c. Possibly there is an issue with the audio codec in use on that particular system. You could try stripping and recombining the audio as a workaround.

Regards, Mike

sgssh · 13-03-2007, 11:51 AM

All, thanks for your advice I have decided to use my normal route for producing DVDs, ie capture on PC first and edit(WMM), author and burn(Nero).

It seems that there are work arounds but they take time, it hardly seems worth doing it this way.

For your info my time spent end to end-
Capture: 1.5 hours (firewire)
Editing: 1 hours (WMM)
Saving: 3 hours
Authouring: 1 hour (Nero)
Transcoding DVD burning: 2 hours.

A total of 8.5 hours.

THANKS GUYS

jaymac · 13-03-2007, 12:38 PM

You could tryAdobe elements /Ulead etc.and compare time taken. How long was the original file on the cam let me know and I'll see what adobe takes

sgssh · 13-03-2007, 7:19 PM

Jaymac, the content on tape was 1 hour and 5 minutes. typically firewire upload is 1:1 so would take about 1:05 hours. Then Windows Movie makes takes about 8 minutes to save the avi.

My system is running XP Pro (SP2), Intel Pentium 4 2.53Ghz, 768MB RAM

Peter.Scrutton · 16-03-2007, 8:27 AM

You could also try VideoRedo, downloadable from www.videoredo.com. This allows VOB or MPEG files to be editied and saved with different aspect ratios, is quick and you get a free fully working trial period.