Need help using VOB files in powerpoint.

Hello.

I use powerpoint in my youth ministry, and I would like to be able to import a video clip from a DVD into powerpoint.

I have a home made DVD of a youth group trip, and I would like to be able to import a clip into a powerpoint presentation.

To my knowledge, I need to have the file in an mpeg1 format in order for powerpoint to support it.

I am ok with video editing. I have Pinnacle Studio 9, which I can use to clean up the clip, but that will only import files like avi & mpegs.

Thanks,
Jim

[[Admin] PHugger]

You should find the answer to this and all your DVD ripping questions at VIDEOHELP.COM. You would need to transcode the MPEG2 stream to MPEG1 and a tool like TMPGEnc will help.





Best regards,
PCH

I'm really struggling with converting my youth group DVD to something I can import into Powerpoint or Pinnacle Studio or Windows Movie Maker.

Someone reccommended that I use DVD Decrypter & use the "Demux" function to change the VOB files into something more useful. Well, now I have AC3 & M2V files that also won't import into Pinnacle.

The wierd thing is that Windows Media Player didn't identify these extensions, but it did play them.

I'm asking this question because within my denomination, I also recieve non-copy righted promo DVDs for upcoming trips, etc. - and it would be a million times easier if I could import them into powerpoint & put them in the announcement slide show.

Can someone help? I'd really appreciate.

[[Admin] PHugger]

This is not something that is particularly easy to do. Why? Because the movie industry wants to discourage us from doing exactly this with THEIR movies. The site I mentioned above is full of tutorials and free tools that will explain how to do this. You need to do some homework. Transcoding to MPEG1 should be doable and will result in videos that look like MPEG1s (not the best quality: low resolution and frame rates). Transcoding back up to DV (AVI) is also doable, but will result in very poor looking videos. Most NLEs use DV (AVIs) as a source format. You are starting with a 'dead end' format and trying to master from it. You just can't put detail back into your video once it's been compressed. MPEG2 is just too highly compressed to act as a good master although there are several NLEs that can do simple cuts on this format and not introduce any further losses. Can't you display MPEG2 video in PPT? This would be the best choice if it's possible. Once you start transcoding your audio is going to be an issue as well.




Best regards,
PCH

One other way I have found to capture clips from DVD's is to hook my DVD player up to my Video camera and us my video camera's analog inputs and then connect the firewire port to my computer and pass the analog signal from the DVD to the computer and perform the capture. There is some loss but I have found this to be by far the easiest method when I have to do it.

Brad

As has already been said here, you have two options. 1) since this is a homemade DVD, you might still have the original video files around. You have had to capture them at somepoint to create the DVD. They were just rendered to DVD format. Pinnacle keeps these in the "Captured Video" folder. 2) if you don't still have those files, recapture as an mpg1 either through your camera's A/D converter as suggested above, or through a capture card.

My denomination (Nazarene) sends out similar DVDs and I capture them to mpgs so that they are easier to play through the worship software (ie EZworship).

[Tweed]

I have used Vob files directly in PowerPoint. After ripping the files from the DVD onto my Hard Drive (i used a program that allows you to select segments of the DVD to rip)(my current favorite programs to work with DVD's are DVD Shrink 3.2, DVD Decrypter, ChopperXP). I basically did with the vob files what I usually do with Movies, I selected insert/insert movies and sounds/ insert move from file

It worked flawlessly. That was until I burned the file to a CD and took it to the computers at the church. I then discovered that the same powerpoint that was working at home, wouldn't work on any computer we had at the church. I finally concluded that the problem was that the home computer had PowerPoint 2003. The comps at the church only had 2000 and 2002. The church computers had windows XP Pro and Windows Professional. The home Computer had windows professional.

I believe that the version of PPT you use may be critical for this to work.

Tweed

[[Admin] PHugger]

Ripping the VOBs will convert them back into MPEG2 files. Your home PC may have the required codecs and the ones at church may not. Lot's of differences besides the PPT versions.

[Tweed]

Originally Posted by PHugger

Ripping the VOBs will convert them back into MPEG2 files. Your home PC may have the required codecs and the ones at church may not. Lot's of differences besides the PPT versions.

All I did was de-CSS (decrypt) the DVD to my Hard drive. I did not convert or compress the files at all. The files I inserted into the powerpoint did not have a.mpg extension but a .vob extension.

A .vob is a Video OBject file. It contains MPEG2 video multiplexed (interleaved) with AC3 audio and text streams (subtitles).

The files on a DVD are already Mpeg2 so I am unclear as to why you say codecs are the issue. The .vob files played on the computers at the church, but would not play from within Powerpoint. That is what lead me to see the older versions of Powerpoint as the cuplrit. I have a little utility that can tell me what codecs i have installed on each computer, so I will check to see if that could have been my problem, but i think more likely it was intenal to powerpoint being able to indentify and play .vob files.

If I am totally off base here, can you give me some guidance on how to make sure I have the right codecs? Becasue I was about to get a newer version of PPT so I could use .vob files from within PPT.

[[Admin] PHugger]

Originally Posted by Tweed

All I did was de-CSS (decrypt) the DVD to my Hard drive. I did not convert or compress the files at all. The files I inserted into the powerpoint did not have a.mpg extension but a .vob extension.

That's pretty cool. I would never have thought that this could work. MS is constantly adding new multimedia extenstions and this may be from a recent update, WMP v10? There is definitely something different between the machines and you're on the right track trying to identify the differences.



Best regards,
PCH

Thanks alot for the info, guys. I really appreciate it. My version of powerpoint is 2002 - so if I can upgrade it and actually import the .vobs, that would help alot.

[Ebroach]

Believe it or Not.. I copied some VOB files to my hard drive .. renamed them with mpg extensions.. works like a champ .. in PPT and EZW...

They were music videos... Not a full length movie.