I am currently trying to get legal vob files from an old movie at work to mpeg to make a new dvd.
I’m using dvd styler, and it doesn’t like .vob files when they are renamed to .mpeg.
So I went to look on the net for conversion tools, and saw that there was still licensing going around for a format that’s more than 10 years old… and this got me thinking: shouldn’t that have expired? I mean it’s from the early 1997’s… more than 10 years ago.
Any thoughts?
Dunno.
What difference does it really make anyway, I wonder? There’s been open source mpeg2 libraries around for quite a while now anyway. Just look at DivX/Xvid for an example(of meg4).
Xvid will create DivX files yet costs nothing…
You can always use mplayer/mencoder to dump the video from the dvd to a file format that’s more manageable. Here’s one for windows: http://oss.netfarm.it/mplayer-win32.php
If you’re using linux, you should already have them, just waiting to be run in a console. If not, and you’re using deb-based one, just grab em with sudo apt-get install mplayer
similarly if it’s an rpm based os, use sudo yum install mplayer
You’ll probably also need the libdvdcss library or whatever it’s exactly called. It’s the ContentScramblingS(omething?) plugin you need to be able to process encrypted dvds. Many OSs come with it, though the US has some kind of a law on crypto stuff that often necessitates the download - even in different parts of the world.
I forget the command line needed to dump a dvd into a video file without changing the compression scheme, though you’ll find it with a little googling.
seeya.
Check out www.videohelp.com. They have links to many free tools and tutorials on how to use them.
I would use DVD Decryptor, and use the split by chapter option: http://www.videohelp.com/tools/DVD_Decrypter
Thanks, that helped a lot 
Got it to work, now I’ve got to figure out why the text in my menus in DVDStyler won’t show up… guess I’ll have to work around it by making image buttons
(actually just changing the background… maybe if I have the time, pre-render the background with animated thumbnails in blender, and use that… if I had the time, I’d do it).
Handbrake will convert a VOB file to an AVI.
http://handbrake.m0k.org/?article=download
The problem with simply renaming a VOB to MPG is that it introduces an audio offset that can mess up lip-synch.
That is quite strange, i mean what kind of thing will make them to patent the format that is almost ten years old at the present timing. It is a bit confusing to me.
US Patents are good for 20 years, http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general/index.html#nature I have one for a new kind of pliers. but you have to pay three maintenance fees or it is abandonded. The status of any patent is viewable at the gov site.