8 replies to this topic

[toastedrebel]

Hey All,

I'm brand new to Toast. Before I bought it, Roxio Support told me I could use it to convert VOB files to AVI. So I'm surprised that there's no help file for this, and I also can't find any relevant postings in the forums. And along with the VOB files are some IFO & BUP files. What are these, and how do I turn all this into a file I can watch? Not interested in burning to DVD at this point, I just want to create a file I can watch on my iBook.

Edited by toastedrebel, 01 April 2006 - 07:32 AM.

[fingerman]

toastedrebel, on Apr 1 2006, 07:28 AM, said:

Hey All,

I'm brand new to Toast. Before I bought it, Roxio Support told me I could use it to convert VOB files to AVI. So I'm surprised that there's no help file for this, and I also can't find any relevant postings in the forus. And along with the VOB files are some IFO & BUP files. What are these, and how do I turn all this into a file I can watch? Not interested in burning to DVD at this point, I just want to create a file I can watch on my iBook.

VOB files stand for VIDEO OBJECTS... and are part of the pieces that make up a DVD structure. I'm guessing that you have a VIDEO_TS folder on your hard disk with these files in it.

You can drag/drop these VOB files into the Toast Video window and then burn these to a new DVD, or export them to other video formats, such as DivX or MPEG4, which would be fine to store on your hard disk and watch from there.

See the section titled Exporting Video in the Getting Started Guide... you do have that don't you?

Also, you can always use the Search option to find prior posts that may answer your question... chance are it's been asked already.  For example, I found this one pretty easily by searching for VOB.

http://forums.suppor...st=

You can do the search by clicking on the "Toast 7" link right before the title of your post (Mac Products > Toast 7 > How To Convert..." and then enter the serach term in the search field.

[toastedrebel]

Actually, I forgot about the user guide. I looked in the Help file. I did find a reference to burning a Video_TS folder, but it doesn't say how to convert to another format. But I now see that it says to drag the entire Video_TS folder into the Content Area. That makes it easy, as I still didn't know what to do with the BUP & IFO files. You didn't explain what these do. From your reply, it sounds like I would drag just the VOB files into the Content Area, and disregard the rest. Does this also work with .Bin .Cue files-just drag the whole folder?
As stated in my post, I did search the forums. I read the post you linked to. It does NOT say how to convert to AVI, only tells how to burn a Video_TS folder, which doesn't help me. A search for "convert to avi", "convert avi" or "vob to avi" (without quotes) found nothing.

fingerman, on Apr 1 2006, 07:35 AM, said:

VOB files stand for VIDEO OBJECTS... and are part of the pieces that make up a DVD structure. I'm guessing that you have a VIDEO_TS folder on your hard disk with these files in it.

You can drag/drop these VOB files into the Toast Video window and then burn these to a new DVD, or export them to other video formats, such as DivX or MPEG4, which would be fine to store on your hard disk and watch from there.

See the section titled Exporting Video in the Getting Started Guide... you do have that don't you?

Also, you can always use the Search option to find prior posts that may answer your question... chance are it's been asked already.  For example, I found this one pretty easily by searching for VOB.

http://forums.suppor...st=

You can do the search by clicking on the "Toast 7" link right before the title of your post (Mac Products > Toast 7 > How To Convert..." and then enter the serach term in the search field.

Actually, I forgot about the user guide; I looked in the Help file. I did find a reference to burning a Video_TS folder, but it doesn't say how to convert to another format. But I now see that it says to drag the entire Video_TS folder into the Content Area. That makes it easy, as I still didn't know what to do with the BUP &IFO files. You didn't explain what these do. From your reply, it sounds like I would drag just the VOB files into the Content Area
, and disregard the rest. Does this also work with .Bin .Cue files-just drag the whole folder?
As stated in my post, I did search the forums. I read the postyou linked to. It does NOT say how to convert to AVI, only tells how to burn a Video_TS folder, which doesn't help me. A search for "convert to avi", "convert avi" or "vob to avi" (without quotes) found nothing.

Edited by toastedrebel, 01 April 2006 - 04:31 PM.

[John at Roxio]

I think Fingerman wasn’t implying you didn’t search, but since you didn’t find anything, he was giving you some tips on how to search more effectively.
Anyway, to export to another format, make sure you have the option chosen for DVD-Video chosen.  Then just highlight the vob file in your layout and click on the export button.  The export window has a menu that will allow you to choose what format you want to export to.  I don’t think AVI is an option unless divx files are avi’s (I don’t personally know much about divx).

[mike457]

The easiest way to do this would be with Handbrake, available as a free download. It will open the video_TS folder, and then you can then choose a format, either avi or mp4.

[toastedrebel]

mike457, on Apr 2 2006, 11:20 AM, said:

The easiest way to do this would be with Handbrake, available as a free download. It will open the video_TS folder, and then you can then choose a format, either avi or mp4.

I checked out HandBrake, but it does not convert to AVI. Here's a quote from the HandBrake FAQs:

Quote

I want to convert a movie so I can burn it on a VCD or a DVD-R. Is HandBrake the right application to do this?

No. HandBrake only outputs MPEG-4, no MPEG-1 or MPEG-2. If you are using OS X, have a look at forty-two, ffmpegX, DVDRemaster or DVD2oneX. This will save you time and quality.

I exported my video once already, as mpeg-4, but there were visible lines through the entire screen. I am unable to use the "DVD from Video" setting, because I get an error that my Video_TS folder can't be compressed. I see others have had this same problem. I'll try exporting again, using different settings.

Roxio support told me I could use Toast to convert VOB files inti AVIs. They better not have lied to me!

Still no one has told me what those BUP & IFO files are. And why do I have several VOB files in the Video_TS folder, but Toast only shows 2? It still managed to get the whole movie, so I'm not concerned about it, just trying to figure out how Toast works.

I've never had to mess with video burning/converting before. I don't even have a burner yet, so I gotta save to the HD. One more thing: Why does the a file that's 641mb in mpeg-4, only create a file of about 56mb in Quicktime Movie format? How can it possibly lose that much info, and still be a full movie?  


Thanks everyone for your input!

Edited by toastedrebel, 02 April 2006 - 12:54 PM.

[tsantee]

toastedrebel, on Apr 2 2006, 11:16 AM, said:

I checked out HandBrake, but it does not convert to AVI. Here's a quote from the HandBrake FAQs:

I exported my video once already, as mpeg-4, but there were visible lines through the entire screen. I am unable to use the "DVD from Video" setting, because I get an error that my Video_TS folder can't be compressed. I see others have had this same problem. I'll try exporting again, using different settings.

Roxio support told me I could use Toast to convert VOB files inti AVIs. They better not have lied to me!

Still no one has told me what those BUP & IFO files are. And why do I have several VOB files in the Video_TS folder, but Toast only shows 2? It still managed to get the whole movie, so I'm not concerned about it, just trying to figure out how Toast works.

I've never had to mess with video burning/converting before. I don't even have a burner yet, so I gotta save to the HD. One more thing: Why does the a file that's 641mb in mpeg-4, only create a file of about 56mb in Quicktime Movie format? How can it possibly lose that much info, and still be a full movie?  
Thanks everyone for your input!

This link has a good explanation of what's inside a VIDEO_TS folder: What is DVD?.

If Toast doesn't want to compress a VIDEO_TS folder that's larger than 4.3 GB in size to a single-layer disc, then the likely problem is you used Mac The Ripper and didn't select Full Disc Extraction to save the VIDEO_TS to your hard drive.

An AVI isn't a specific kind of video. There are many different video codecs used to create different types of AVI's. A common type today is a DiVX disc. What I do to create a DivX disc is to place my VIDEO_TS folder on the desktop and then use the DVD option in the Toast Media Browser to select the video I want from that folder and drag it to the Toast Video window (where I have DVD video selected as the format). Toast extracts the MPEG from the VIDEO_TS and writes it to the Roxio Converted Items folder. Next, I select the extracted video in the Toast video window and then click the Export button. Here I can choose the DivX option for converting and exporting my video.

The guide in Toast Help should fill you in on the details.

[ryan_eads]

a .avi is not exactly an avi file.  The avi format is like the .mov fomat of quicktime.  Its just a container that contains the audio/video.  The type of avi file you are trying to make is called divx which is a hacked derivative of mpeg4 video format that contained in an avi file.  Another format which is a more efficiant hack of divx is xvid. For what you want to do, handbrake is the best solution.  As i said before, mpeg4 is part of the divx format.  Toast, thogh, can encode into the official divx format unlike Handbrake, which does only xvid. The official divx fomat also has less issues on Divx compatible dvd players. Most videos you find about on the internet is in the xvid format.
Hope that info helps

Edited by ryan_eads, 02 April 2006 - 05:40 PM.

[debit72]

If all you want is a file you can watch, you could always use Toast to create a disk image, which would act like a DVD except it exists on your hard drive and not on a DVD physical disk ... when you want to watch the file, just mount the disk image using Toast and it will appear on your desktop; you can play it using DVDPlayer. However, the file can be large.