[Novalug] Video dvd problems and questions

Bonnie Dalzell bdalzell@qis.net
Fri Sep 25 19:32:27 EDT 2009


On Fri, 25 Sep 2009, Bryan J. Smith wrote:


>
> Bonnie --
>
> For home videos, your VOB files should not be encrypted.  However,
> your VOB files should be encoded in a manner as to be DVD player
> compatible.  Have you tried them in a consumer player and not just
> the same device as the recorder?
>

The DVD's play fine on a variety of stand alone DVD players. My home 
players - DVD players at the studio, etc.

The VOB files play fine on my two Ubuntu machines and on the MAC Pro 
laptop (intel).

What is weird is this:

The DVD DISKS are NOT recognized as existing when inserted into either of 
the Ubuntu computers when Ubuntu is running. The Intel laptop which dual 
boots Ubuntu and Windows Vista is able to recognize the existance of the 
DVD in the drive and read the index of the DVD so I can copy the VOB files 
onto a thumb drive and bring them to the Ubuntu tower and the MAC Laptop 
that way.

So my problem is not in playing the VOB files (or converting them to 
other things) once they are copied off the DVD. MY problem is:

Why can't my Ubuntu installations recognize the existance of the DVD in 
the drive? (even partition editor does not respond to the presence of the 
DVD)

A secondary problem more appropriate for my husband's MAC list is why 
the MAC cannot read the index of the DVD even though it can play the 
videos on it.


> I have a feeling that your recorder might not be converting from DV
> or the native version of your consumer recording device, making them
> only work in the recorder itself or under Windows, possibly only with the
> Macrovision package or a licensed (even if free) player.

The way the videos are exported to the DVD is that you play them into the 
video in and audio in of the Panasonic DVD recorder and the panasonic 
DVD recorder produces the VOB files from the video feed. No Macrovision 
formatting in the final files.

>
> Macrovision has a long history of such non-sense in consumer devices
> and software.  I'm now curious what the format is, and if Macrovision
> had a licensing schema where they had several consumer electronics
> companies on-board and including their codecs in various consumer
> player firmware.
>
Today I went back to the video studio to help do some trouble shooting 
on some of the hardware.  We took one of the harddisks from the 
Macrovision and hooked it up to my Ubuntu  laptop via one of those USB 
harddrive hookups (which are very neat indeed).

I found it had a small fat partition and a large partition formatted in an 
unknown manner. It sort of looked the same as some of my Amiga related 
file systems when you look at an Amiga formatted drive from linux. IE some 
sort of "hardfile".

So far I have not been able to find out much about the Macrovision file 
format.

There are some downsides to the system - for example it can only read 
files from a DVD that it makes itself with its internal DVD maker. SO the 
clips we saved to DVD via the video out to the Panasonic recorder can only 
come back into the MAcrovision if they are played in through its video in 
(the same as if you were loading a camera tape into it).

>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Varol Okan <varokan@MovingSatellites.com>
>
> Is it in DV format ?
>
> VOB is mpeg2 with VOB packets for DVD navigation injected. The DVD spec
> is a mess in general make sure the mpeg2's have ac3 audio encoded as for
> NTSC DVDs mp2 is not a requirement ( for PAL it is ).
>
> I use OpenSuSE exclusively and I have to manually compile and install
> libdvdcss to make the video menus usable.


In the absence of libdvdcss could the system recognize that a disk 
was inserted into its dvd drive?


>So you might have to do the same.
> I use xine, as MPlayer does not support DVD navigation AFAIK.
> VLC does also support menu navigation plus its cross platform.
>

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                        Bonnie Dalzell, MA
mail:5100 Hydes Rd PO Box 60, Hydes,MD,USA 21082-0060|EMAIL:bdalzell@qis.net
Freelance anatomist, vertebrate paleontologist, writer, illustrator, dog
breeder, computer nerd & iconoclast... Borzoi info at www.borzois.com.
HOME www.batw.net    ART bdalzellart.batw.net  BUSINESS www.boardingatwedge.com




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