GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 644503
VOB files from DVD recorder only show as 1 second in length
Last modified: 2011-04-01 20:04:55 UTC
VOB files copied from a disk made on a stand-alone DVD recorder box do not work in PiTiVi. They import as only 1 second in length and do not play on the timeline. A VOB file copied from an authored, non-encrypted DVD seems to behave reasonably on the timeline. If I play the DVD Recorder VOB file with gstreamer: gst-launch filesrc location=recorder.VOB ! mpegdemux ! mpeg2dec ! xvimagesink I just get: Setting pipeline to PAUSED ... Pipeline is PREROLLING ... Pipeline is PREROLLED ... Setting pipeline to PLAYING ... New clock: GstSystemClock Got EOS from element "pipeline0". Execution ended after 136896 ns. Setting pipeline to PAUSED ... Setting pipeline to READY ... Setting pipeline to NULL ... Freeing pipeline ... But: gst-launch filesrc location=authored.VOB ! mpegdemux ! mpeg2dec ! xvimagesink plays as expected. I can play back the recorder.VOB file with: gst-launch filesrc location=recorder.VOB ! decodebin2 ! xvimagesink I hope this provides a clue as to solving the problem. All the gstreamer based media player applications I've tried have trouble with these files from the DVD recorder. VLC can play them correctly although there are a lot of video mosaic breakup when seeking.
From your description, all gstreamer apps have trouble with your files, so reassigning to gstreamer instead of pitivi so it can get proper attention. Providing a sample file for devs to inspect would probably help.
How big an attachment will be accepted? I've found a VOB file that is ~84MB. Is there some place I can up load it to? This one reports as 9 seconds but is about 2.5 minutes long. It goes on PiTiVi timeline as a bit over 9 seconds, it sort of scrubs, but if I play the timeline it only plays once then nothing seems to work.
An gnome bugzilla, the maximum attachment size is 1 MB, so you will probably have to host it on your own server or some place like dropbox, ubuntu one, megaupload or some other file sharing service.
Ok I will set one of these up over the weekend and post a message next week with a link to it when I get it uploaded. Actually I have a "windows" live account from when I beta tested Win7 and I think its still active and has enough space so I'll start there if I can still access it.
I've split the ~88MB file into three pieces (split -d -b 30M infile outbase) and uploaded them to: http://cid-0dd39c143d9d5b74.office.live.com/browse.aspx/.Public They should be down-loadable to anyone. cat VOBproblem0? > problem.VOB should give you a sample file that shows the problem. To recap, gst-launch filesrc location=problem.VOB ! mpegdemux ! mpeg2dec ! xvimagesink doesn't play it, but: gst-launch filesrc location=problem.VOB ! decodebin2 ! xvimagesink does.
What I'm seeing: totem and pitivi can both play the file, but think that its duration is 9-10 seconds. VLC seems to think that too, but can seek beyond that point in a somewhat unreliable manner. Even Mplayer has problems with it and throws errors. The total length (if you let totem play it through) is about 2m25s. Seems to me like your file is just plain broken/corrupt. Not sure there's something that can be done here except remuxing your files. I loaded the vob file into avidemux and re-exported it in an avi container (kept the video and audio codecs in "copy" mode), and now it works fine.
This VOB file comes from a closed disk recorded with a stand-alone Toshiba DVD recorder device (Model DR420KU). They (the disks, once closed) will play fine in any commercial DVD player. These things work to a "standard" Linux by definition is not doing something right here with these files. It does seem the problem is bigger than just gstreamer.