Funny problem with conversion from DVD to MKV

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live & Live Plus
1

I had encountered a funny problem while converting a series of 6 DVDs (24 episodes) to MKV with HandBrake. One single episode refuses to convert, the first one at disk 3 (it does not show up in the Title dropdown list). Well, this problem I’ve had before, so I gather the VOB’s to a single file to convert it, and then I will cut out the episode in a second pass using the Seconds field i HB. But but but … This episode converts to a blank picture (parts before (menu) and after show up fine).

The Mediainfo show a pretty high bitrate (about 10x the other disks):

Video
ID : 224 (0xE0)
Format : MPEG Video
Format version : Version 2
Format profile : Main@Main
Format settings, BVOP : Yes
Format settings, Matrix : Default
Duration : 10mn 50s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 51.3 Mbps
Nominal bit rate : 8 000 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Standard : PAL
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Interlaced
Scan order : Top Field First
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 4.952
Stream size : 3.89 GiB (97%)

51.3 Mbps compared to 5532 Kpbs for the next disk. The Bits/(Pixel*Frame) and Stream size change accordingly, other fields are identical.

It seems that this (supposedly wrong) rate confuses HB (“cant get a decoded picture”) but is handled by the player (the DVD, image and VOB plays fine with Media Player and VLC), and it is not a ripping problem.

Any suggestion to how I can correct or convert this file (preferably with freeware) to get rid of the wrong bitrate, so I can run it through HB?

Cocovanna

2

Hello

Your can try MakeMkv to convert your BD.

I have not a long experience with it, but never had trouble. It’s really fast.

I use it with AnyDvd HD in the bakground.

Not freeware, but free to use during beta stage (most of time)

http://www.makemkv.com/

:wink:

3

Tnx for the suggestion. It is not BD, but DVD, but anyway, in the meantime I tried to use Pinnacle Studio. For some reason, when I put VOB file through Pinnacle, it always gets a much shorter length (truncated), but by using all episodes in one large file I manged to push it just beyond end of first episode.

Saved with standard DVD options and obtained a well-looking MPG file, that HB could recognize. But alas, after conversion it resulted in a very funny-looking but useless file (it looked somehow like one half of the interlaced picture played in a different speed that the other half …)

Then I considered making an MP4 file with Pinnacle instead, but stumbled across the Progressive setting and decided to give it a try. This time the conversion took much longer, and again resulted in a well-looking MPG (this time non-interlaced). And finally this went through Handbrake and gave a usable result :slight_smile: Took most of the weekend, but doesn’t matter when it succeeds.

If MakeMkv can remove interlacing it may have worked too, but I haven’t got any energy left to try it …

Cocovanna

4

MakeMKV employs its own decryption algorithms so it does not actually need AnyDVD. It also does not encode but only wrap the video as is into a new container which is why it’s considerably faster than Handbrake.