When I try to load a clip (a VOB file on a DVD) it usually works fine and I can do what I want.
But if it is the first file on the DVD it tells me it is more than 9 hours long and when I try and play it in the viewer it is blank.
Actually, to be quite precise it is the second file, but the first file is some kind of title and it gives an error when I try and load it and is only a few kb anyway.
The file I am interested in is 1.1GB.

This is consistent across several DVDs (family videos, I've had someone copy them off VHS tapes).
I can play the whole DVD using VLC Media Player and I can view the material from that just fine. But every DVD has a chunk of material on the front I cannot extract.
I've had a look around the FAQs and the forums here and I don't see anyone else with this issue, but sorry if I didn't look hard enough.

I'm doing this on Ubuntu 11.10 using Kdenlive 0.9.6

Thanks for any help.
Roger

Hi, what does kdenlives clip properties tell you about the file. What project profile are you using and are you loading the clip from the DVD media or first copied the files you want to your hard drive, I'd suggest the second option as preferable.

Hi Yellow. Thanks for the reply.
The clip properties are:
duration 9:17:03:10 size 1020MiB
Under Audio tab I see Audio codec MP3, Channels 2, Frequency 48000
Markers: nothing
Metadata: nothing
Advanced: none of the boxes are checked, Video Index is grey.
Force Aspect Ratio 16:9
Force Frame Rate: 0.00
Force scanning: interlaced
force field order: bottom first
Decoding threads 1
Video Index 0
Audio Index 0
Force colorspace ITU-R 601

However the next file (which works okay) looks the same but has a video tab which
has sensible looking stuff on it.
Video codec MPEG-2, Frame size: 720x576, Frame rate: 25.630252, Scanning: interlaced, Pixel aspect ratio: 1.066667, pixel format yuv420p, Colorspace ITU-R 601

So I suppose the missing video tab on the non-working file is pretty significant.

Project settings show profile is HD 720p 25fps, this was auto selected by the second file (the one that works).
I tried loading the file directly off the DVD and also copying it to the hard drive and loading from there. It was the same both ways.
Because the profile changed when I loaded the second one (autoselected) I removed the first clip and then reloaded it to make sure it was loaded with the HD 720p 25fps profile. Still didn't help.

Regards
Roger

Hi, does the first clip, the one you only get a audio tab with in kdenlive play in VLC with video? The project settings are incorrect for the clip that does have a video tab, it should be. DVD PAL project profile with a 25 fps (50 interlaced) at 720x576. A 720p project will be upscaling what will almost certainly be quite reduced quality from VHS captures.

With a tool like mediainfo or VLC codec info what do they say about first and second clip you list above?

Also how did you install kdenlive 0.9.6 on Ubuntu 11.04?

One gigabyte seems pretty small for a nine hour VOB clip?

Yeah, but is it nine hours? If the source has been created in some odd way with screwed up stream data and ffmpeg is reading that stream data then who knows without testing via mediainfo or other reporting tool?

Say the stream suggests it was 25p but really it's 50i and ffmpeg is assuming each field as a frame at 25p then that's doubled the assumed duration of the VOB?

Above kdenlive is suggesting 25p 1280x720 due to 1:1 PAR or whatever reason and the source is 50i? That would be double duration to what it should be?

It is definitely not 9 hours. To answer the earlier question: yes, it does all play in VLC. If I get VLC to just play the whole DVD it starts at the content I cannot see with kdenlive, and it reports the total time for the DVD as 1:15 (ie much less than 9 hours). If I attempt to open just that file with VLC it does not play.

Taking your advice I started a new project and picked DVD PAL with 25 fps and 720x576 (the fps and size were the defaults). When I load the clip it gives me a warning saying the clip size is 720x576 and fps is 25.6303, I'm assuming the Fps is close enough so I OK this. That's the one that plays (the second one). The first one doesn't give me any warning and pre-specifying the profile made no difference.

Given that VLC won't play it on its own, there must be some trick VLC is doing using the other files on the DVD when it plays the whole thing. What it does then is it shows a title screen, a very simple one with one thumbnail to click, and when I click it then it plays the first file. Now, I have only the vaguest idea what happens with that, and I've tried loading the VOB file I think is the title screen (65.5kb) and it doesn't load so I've ignored it so far.

The DVD has the following files in the VIDEO_TS dir:
VIDEO_TS.BUP
VIDEO_TS.IFO
VIDEO_TS.VOB << doesn't load, presumably the title page, 65.5kb
VTS_01_0.BUP
VTS_01_0.IFO
VTS_01_1.VOB << doesn't load
VTS_01_2.VOB << works fine
VTS_01_3.VOB << works fine

Thi looks similar enough to other DVDs I've opened so I assume it is standard stuff.

Is it possible the BUP or IFO files are somehow giving enough info to VLC to load the VTS_01_1/VOB file? Is there a way to get kdenlive to do the same?
I guess this one isn't going to be anything obvious.
Thanks for taking the time on it
Roger

You're correct regarding the small files on the disc giving enough info for the player to play the VOBs, as from memory I believe video content is split into chunks and stored in VOB containers and chained together at playback using the .BUP and .IFO files.

The VOBs are not necessarily split at chapters so if the whole disc plays in VLC you could consider transcoding it out of VLC to something like mpeg2 for import into kdenlive or maybe use something like Handbrake or DVD backup / ripper application from the distros repositories.

My personal approach would be to try and extract the mpeg2 + audio streams from the VOBs and join them rather than transcode but not sure what tools we have available on Linux.

Think there was a tool called vobcopy or such, maybe browse your distros repositories through synaptic or software centre searching with VOB.

Also maybe even a tool like mkvmergeGUI may help remuxing into a single mkv container.

That's a start I guess, if I have chance later today, will try, as I have a couple of old DVDs of similar nature to work with.

There are many tools in Linux for ripping a DVD, and remuxing, transcoding, etc.

I use mplayer (mencoder). At the end of it's (HUGE) manpage are examples how to do this, also a lot of howtos on the web, just google "mplayer rip dvd" or something similar.

For best quality, don't re-encode, just change the container to something more Kdenlive-friendly (-ovc copy -oac copy).

Mplayer can also demux the streams, if you wish (-dumpxxx), but you probably won't need that.


If for some reason you can't use mplayer, other options are VLC, ffmpeg, ....

If ffmpeg is failing to detect the necessary via MLT and kdenlive, then remuxing with ffmpeg probably won't work. First establish what players other than VLC can play your DVD, if MPlayer can't then it doesn't matter how BIG the manpage is. :-) First establish tools that can play the DVD, go from there.

Did a quick test using mkvmergeGUI on a DVD I had, selected all the files off the DVD and within seconds remuxed to .mkv with no need to study manpages or esoteric ffmpeg command lines or VLC and MPlayer perculiarities. :-)

http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/

It may or may not be as simple as that. :-)

Thanks, guys. I guess it is obvious I'm new to this :)
I used VLC to extract the whole DVD into an MP4 and kdenlive happily processes that file. So I'm good now.
I've also picked better settings for the kdenlive project and that improved the quality.
Thanks again.
R

Excellent, good to hear.