Difficulty Converting .vob to Something, Anything for CS3

[Sabihato]

Hello. First time poster, but I'm working on my first AMV now which encouraged me to sign up as I might have more questions later. Looks to be a great place for assistance, so I'll cut to the chase.

I've looked many places for a tool to convert .vob to .dv so I can work the footage on Adobe Premiere CS3 properly but I haven't had much luck. In trying to find alternatives, I stumbled upon and have been following VicBond007's Guide to Working with DVD Footage on this site up until page 12. I've done the appropriate scripting, but in VirtualDub, it errors opening the .d2v file in my script. Here's a link to the screenshot of the error message I'm getting (1920x1200). What exactly am I missing?

To give you an idea of what I'm working with, here's a summary of my system and the apps I've installed (all in the "Program Files (x86)" folder):

Windows Vista 64-Bit
CCCP (my main video codec pack and player)
VirtualDub (version 1.8.7)
MeGUI (has a tool called dgindex that functions similar to DVD2AVI suggested on page 5 of the guide)
AVISynth (version 2.5.7, suggested on page 6 of the guide)
Mpeg2Dec3 Plugin (version 1.10, suggested on page 7 of the guide)
Decomb Plugin (version 5.2.3, suggested on page 7 of the guide)
Xvid Video Codec (suggested on page 8 of the guide)
Huffyuv Video Codec (version 2.1.1, suggested on page 8 of the guide. Worryingly, it doesn't show up in VirtualDub's compression methods for me whereas it does for VicBond007 on page 7, and I think I did the installation properly, by right-clicking and selecting "Install")

*I did not install the DivX Video Codec version 4.12 as I worry it might conflict with how I already have CCCP setup.

Script file is conveniently titled script.avs. I created a second file to be sure and neither of them loaded properly:
LoadPlugin("C:\Program Files (x86)\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\MPEG2Dec3.dll")
LoadPlugin("C:\Program Files (x86)\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\Decomb.dll")
MPEG2Source("c:\AMV_Project\testvid1.d2v", idct=5, CPU=4, iPP=true)

Did I type the script wrong? Am I using the wrong version of something? Do I really need to install DivX 4.12? Is it a conflict with my OS? Is it because there's an (x86) in the directory? Or is the underscore throwing it off? Alternatively, I'm always looking for faster, better ways to turn .vob to .dv or any file type that works well with Premiere CS3 with a minimum of quality loss, if you can provide or link it. Whichever the case, I appreciate any assistance you all can give me.

[Kariudo]

Vicbond's guide, though easy to follow, is really showing its age.
I'd suggest the new eadfag

I didn't know that megui came with dgindex, but I suspect that's your problem.
Simply put, if you made your .d2v file with dgindex, you need dgdecode.dll (instead of mpeg2dec3.dll)

I'd get dgindex (1.5.0) from here
(the versions of dgindex and dgdecode have to match, this is the easiest way of making sure that's the case)
put dgdecode.dll into the avisynth plugins folder (C:\program files\avisynth\plugins)
re-index your .vob files and then everything should work

as a side note avisynth 2.5 autoloads all the .dll and .avsi files in its plugins folder, so you can get rid of those loadplugin() lines

good luck on your first amv, and don't be discouraged by comments some members will make (some of the other regulars get pretty harsh)

[kmv]

a tool to convert .vob to .dv

Assuming you really did mean DV (and not d2v) because you want move to an editing codec, Avidemux will let you go straight from one to the other.

However, given that you are on Windows, you are probably better off using HuffYUV or Largarth. You really do need to read the guide Kariudo mentioned.

[Sabihato]

Well, I spent several days brushing up on video encoding through the guide Kariudo linked me and I can't stress enough how wonderful it is. Although it is a bit before CS3 and its features, it is still undeniably applicable. AviSynth and VirtualDubMod make setting up the .avi clips easy and flexible. I don't have a problem with getting clips into Premiere Pro anymore. My Apple friends would prefer .dv to the size of the .avis but I'll settle for this.

What I'm about to ask is probably better suited for the Adobe subforum, but I'll throw the question up here first: I want to follow the guide by the book, and the author says s/he likes to edit with DVD PAR. That's what I want to do too. But something's still not being processed correctly, probably because I am still a bit confused about aspect ratios. I'd like to see if you can identify whatever error it is I'm doing or anything that I'm explaining to myself wrong.

This is a sample frame of a clip I'm editing in its dvd resolution (720x480 as a result). I've applied the following scripts to clean up the image and I say the results are rather excellent:
MPEG2Source("C:\some\random\destination.d2v", cpu=4)
Deen("w3d,3,3,5")
vmToon(strength=24)
ConvertToRGB24()

This is the same frame converted to square pixels (thus, 848x480). I've added the line "LanczosResize(848,480)" to get it to appear in its proper DAR. The guide says doing this affects quality so I would like to edit it as it looks in the first picture. I've since created a short clip in that original dvd resolution to test.

The guide says the Editing Mode should be either DV Playback or Video for Windows. I selected Desktop for lack of either of those options. From there, I followed the guide word for word when selecting the other options (23.976 fps timebase, 720x480 frame size, no fields because my clips are all progressive, 24fps Timecode). Inside the Video Rendering subcategory, the File Format was Video for Windows and the Compressor was Huffyuv v2.1.1 - CCESP Patch v0.2.5.

At this point, I imported the test clip and went to preview it in both the source and timeline viewer and immediately spotted a discrepancy. This image shows the problem. There is a black space left and right of the timeline preview. And it is my understanding that the Premiere Pro CS3 previewer would immediately correct this by stretching the image horizontally as it does for Final Cut Pro (so spoken by my friend). First I thought that this was normal. To make sure, I went a little bit ahead and went through the exporting tutorial of the guide. But the result was black borders on all four sides in the final .avi.

Is there a setting that I goofed up on in Premiere Pro, perhaps while I was creating the project? Does Premiere Pro CS3 really have a way to display anomorphic widescreen video properly? I know I expect to be editing in that 720x480 look but the outcome shouldn't appear as it does in the timeline previewer in this image.

At the same time, I'd like you to take a look at this first image once again. There are some copius black lines running vertical left and right of the picture and you'll notice it too in the Premiere Pro screenshot as well. Is that normal?

And again, any tips and support is greatly appreciated.

[Krisqo]

Try using the following code to remove the black lines. It works fine for my Kanon script.

Code: Select all

Crop(4,0,-4,0)
LanczosResize(848,480

About the preview. If you look at the little thubnail preview in your project window you can see what I think the problem is. Your source is listed as 720x480 with a PAR of 0.9. You are then importing it into a project with a PAR of 1.2. I'm trying to replicate the problem in my version of premiere (6.5) but I cannot seem to do so. But that's the only thing I can see at the moment. Try using these settings HERE (I tried to find the same frame as your pics.) and see if that alleviates the problems.

[Krisqo]

Whoops... for the black lines, I mean the ones in the original file.

[Sabihato]

Hmmm, after seeing your post and rereading the guide, I see now what the original problem was. I was confused about the options presented in CS3 when selecting the pixel aspect ratio. See, in this picture, you have NTSC and NTSC Widescreen 16:9. Since my source clips are widescreen in format, I thought that was the obvious choice. Now I know to select 0.9 rather than the latter.

CS3 doesn't have any preview windows when creating a project, unfortunately.

I did some comparison between the cropped and uncropped versions of the same clip, and I discovered that cropping will cause the PAR to become 1.0, despite the resolution being 712x480. Since I want to retain as much of the original quality as I can when editing the clips, I won't be able to do what you suggested (it's hardly noticable, I know, but I wanna try to avoid resizing to 848x480, though a lot of people say they prefer working in this format). But it is appreciated. Hopefully, once the project is exported and I size it back for widescreen distribution again, those black edges will disappear. Unless you people tell me otherwise, that is.

The questions I'm going to be having now are likely to be Premiere Pro-related. So I'm going to post them in the Adobe subforum instead. Of course, If I have any more questions converting, they'll be going right here in a more appropriately-titled thread. Thanks again.