Using Elan to code VOB files from DVDs

Posted by shakilaa at 2007-12-01 01:23

Hello,
Our Lab is new to Elan and we need help in using the software for decoding gesture and watching the videos frame by frame. The thing is that we have the video files in VOB foramt, which is the DVD format and would like to avoid the conversion time and space to the more standard format.

I got the idea that the valid input files to Elan doesn't include .VOB, and when we try opening the .VOB files ,it doesn't work properly, it is either not synch or hangs or something like that.
I was wondering if there is any way around it, and if anybody else has had the same problem. Or is the conversion the only option.

Thanks

Re: Using Elan to code VOB files from DVDs

Posted by hasloe at 2007-12-09 22:48

To be able to play .VOB files a DVD Decoder needs to be installed. A DVD Decoder is a kind of MPEG-2 decoder. We know that a lot of MPEG-2 codecs are problematic; they are not always frame accurate and stable.
And running files directly from DVD could make things even worse (see post "Using video directly from CD").
The .VOB files will probably not be the files for the archive? So, if there aren't already versions in another format available, it's probably best to convert to a standard format now, before starting the annotation process.

Han

Re: Using Elan to code VOB files from DVDs

Posted by Bruno at 2008-02-04 21:06

I am currently using VOB2MPG to convert all the .VOB files to .MPG before annotating. The process is pretty fast, very easy, and it's freeware. However, I have just started using it and I cannot vouch for its stability.
Bruno

Re: Re: Using Elan to code VOB files from DVDs

Posted by Bruno at 2008-02-20 16:45

Bruno-2008-02-04 21:06:49

I am currently using VOB2MPG to convert all the .VOB files to .MPG before annotating. The process is pretty fast, very easy, and it's freeware. However, I have just started using it and I cannot vouch for its stability. Bruno

Well, I may have jumped the gun here. Apparently, the particular encoding of the files VOB2MPG does creates some problems with the video playback (see "Erratic behavior of crosshair" thread). Han and I are not sure this is what is causing the problem but I guess I should be cautious and not recommend the use of VOB2MPG for this particular case. If anybody else in the forum can suggest another way to convert I'd be happy to try it here at UNC Chapel Hill.

Re: Re: Re: Using Elan to code VOB files from DVDs

Posted by sumanti at 2008-08-26 14:51

My colleague have same problem with VOB files. I used WM-Converter to convert it either to WMV/Zune (output as .asf format, recommended) or MPEG1 files (less quality than wmv converted files) and it worked good. Freeware, take about 10 minutes to convert 48 minutes video. I tried to convert to MPEG2 files but video result was bad. I don't encounter any problem yet using the converted file for ELAN. I use this converter also to get the audio (WAV format) out of the video.

Bruno-2008-02-20 16:45:57

Bruno-2008-02-04 21:06:49
I am currently using VOB2MPG to convert all the .VOB files to .MPG before annotating. The process is pretty fast, very easy, and it's freeware. However, I have just started using it and I cannot vouch for its stability. Bruno
Well, I may have jumped the gun here. Apparently, the particular encoding of the files VOB2MPG does creates some problems with the video playback (see "Erratic behavior of crosshair" thread). Han and I are not sure this is what is causing the problem but I guess I should be cautious and not recommend the use of VOB2MPG for this particular case. If anybody else in the forum can suggest another way to convert I'd be happy to try it here at UNC Chapel Hill.

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Using Elan to code VOB files from DVDs