Converting .iso DVD video to .mp4

[Lara Friedman-Shedlov]

Hi all,

I have about a thousand DVD video files currently stored as .iso. I want to batch convert them to .mp4.  Anyone had any experience with that? So far I've experimented with Handbrake and ffmpeg, but I can't get even one file to successfully convert. The error I get from ffmpeg (same thing on any file I try from the batch):

[in#0 @ 000002922979d1c0] Error opening input: Invalid data found when processing input

Error opening input files: Invalid data found when processing input

This makes me think that there is perhaps something wrong with the source files, but I have no idea what or what to do about it.  

Anyone have an experience with this kind of thing or any idea how to troubleshoot?

Thanks,

Lara Friedman-Shedlov

--

Lara D. Friedman-Shedlov    (she / they)  (hear my name)

Digital Records Archivist | Archives & Special Collections 

University of Minnesota Libraries | lib.umn.edu | 612.626.7972

I acknowledge that the University of Minnesota is located on the traditional, ancestral and contemporary lands of Indigenous people and was built with money from slaveholders. 

[Lara Friedman-Shedlov]

P.S.  Also tried VLC and it produces a 1KB file that doesn't open. 

All these files can be opened and successfully played as .iso files in VLC

[Donald Mennerich]

Within Bitcurator you can try extracting the .VOB files from the .iso using the tsk_recover command then converting to mp4 using ffmeg. If you can get that to work it wouldn't be difficult to automate via scripting. We've run into to some dvd .isos that used an Apple variant of UDF that made life miserable. You might want to look into that it could be your problem, the imaging software can only access the file-metadata but not the actual data streams. Hence, the small file. You can image them in an Apple OS using the DiskUtility and setting the format to `bin/cue`

Donald

Donald R. Mennerich, Senior Digital Archivist

Digital Library Technology Services

New York University Libraries

don.me...@nyu.edu (212) 992-6264

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[Lara Friedman-Shedlov]

Thanks for these ideas, Don.  Each .iso file will typically have multiple .vob files (in a video_ts folder).  Can ffmpeg convert a video_ts folder? I don't have a ton of experience with it...

I don't know if the original disks were created using Apple, but all the .iso files were created from the original DVD disks using IsoBuster on a Windows machine.  It took several months using an autoloader to process the disks, so when you say "image them in an Apple OS using the DiskUtility" are you saying re-image the original disks? That would not be an option. Or are you saying I could do something with the .iso files using DiskUtility?

 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bitcurator-users/CAD067EnQTqmq-tDPfcKR9F8goMH-Hx3H5fgJYEse%2BRgFWUzNjQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Donald Mennerich]

Thanks for these ideas, Don.  Each .iso file will typically have multiple .vob files (in a video_ts folder).  Can ffmpeg convert a video_ts folder? I don't have a ton of experience with it...

I'm unsure, I would script this though. Go to a iso, extract any .VOB files into a dir, convert to .mp4, repeat, etc. 

 so when you say "image them in an Apple OS using the DiskUtility" are you saying re-image the original disks? That would not be an option

I would at least examine one manually if nothing else works. 

Can you output the command fsstat for one of your images and post the results?

e.g. 

-bash-4.2$ fsstat FA_MSS_492_1.iso

=== PRIMARY VOLUME DESCRIPTOR 1 ===
FILE SYSTEM INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------
File System Type: ISO9660
Volume Name: BOLIDAYDVD
Volume Set Size: 1
Volume Set Sequence: 1
Publisher:
Data Preparer:
Recording Application: iDVD:7.1.1, NoInterface:000, DSPAuthoring:97.1.1, DVDBase:564.0.3, Oxygene:507
Copyright:

METADATA INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------
Path Table Location: 258-258
Inode Range: 0 - 11
Root Directory Block: 259

CONTENT INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------
Sector Size: 2048
Block Size: 2048
Total Sector Range: 0 - 861423
Total Block Range: 0 - 861423

 

Donald R. Mennerich, Senior Digital Archivist

Digital Library Technology Services

New York University Libraries

don.me...@nyu.edu (212) 992-6264

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bitcurator-users/CAKWpb_bN%2BYc-e6a%2BHN%3D4jYF6TmNX1pGu2MMj7PoM-EuvFyRBdw%40mail.gmail.com.

[Joe Carrano]

Hey Lara,

Looks like ffmprovisr has a recipe for using ffmpeg and inputting
multiple VOB files to MP4:
https://amiaopensource.github.io/ffmprovisr/#dvd_to_file

> To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bitcurator-users/CAD067EmJSGqTMoqjU0gs-Y2FHWuv5tsfD_eK_tw%2BPAoxT7YrPA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Brandon Pieczko]

Hi Lara,

I have a rather old bash script that uses ffmpeg to create a single MP4 file from a group of VOB files directly from DVDs. It's not exactly what you need, but you're welcome to adapt it if you like: https://github.com/bpieczko/dvd-mp4-conversion. FYI, it worked at one point but I haven't tested it in several years.

Brandon

[Lara Friedman-Shedlov]

Thank you very much to everyone who has taken the time thus far to respond. I really really appreciate it!

Let me give just a little more context:

I have a collection of over 1000 optical disks, almost all of which are DVD video, that needed to be transferred from the original media for preservation. Because of the large number of disks, I used a Nimbie disk autoloader along with Iromlab, which basically ends up using IsoBuster to make .iso images of each disk.  So now I have about 1000 .iso files. They all open and play just fine as .iso files using VLC player. However, they are very large (1.7 TB all together) so we would like to convert them to .mp4  (in this case we are not concerned about losing anything we want to preserve by doing so).  I am not going to go back and manually re-image each disk. The amount of time it would take is prohibitive.  If worse comes to worse we can preserve the .iso files as is, but I'd really like to find an efficient, batch method of converting them to .mp4.  We are willing to purchase software (within reason), if something exists that will do the job.  We do have Adobe Media Encoder, but it doesn't work on .iso files, unfortunately. 

I know I could extract a VIDEO_TS folder (containing all the.VOB files, as well as the other components) from .iso each using IsoBuster, and HandBrake will convert the VIDEO_TS folders to MP4.  I tried one and it works (slowly!).  However,I'd need a way to automate that process of extracting the VIDEO_TS folders from the .iso files. 

If anyone is inclined to take a look, I put a sample of one of the .iso files on Google Drive.  It's a video of a service in a synagogue.   

FYI, I don't currently have BitCurator up and running. I was having a lot of trouble getting it to run properly on our FRED. We recently had to replace the hard drive, however, so I will try again to get it installed at some point.  Currently, however, I don't think I have a way to run fsstat. 

Any other ideas or insights would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks again to everyone who has shared some already!

/ Lara

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bitcurator-users/CACSG7BTFb-HsgW1yOnDKmp9rtsPEhPwE%3DUW4Ub8km2u4eQ_rTQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Donald Mennerich]

You can also install the sleuthkit binaries for windows on your FRED, presuming your running Windows. They seem to run perfectly for me and are really handy for figuring out imaging problems on the FRED. 

Running Windows Subsystem for Linux is another option, I use often as well for Sleuthkit, ewf-tools, and automating things on a FRED. There is default support for Ubuntu when you install it. 

Don

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>> --
>> Lara D. Friedman-Shedlov    (she / they)  (hear my name)
>> Digital Records Archivist | Archives & Special Collections
>> University of Minnesota Libraries | lib.umn.edu | 612.626.7972
>>
>> I acknowledge that the University of Minnesota is located on the traditional, ancestral and contemporary lands of Indigenous people and was built with money from slaveholders.
>>
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BitCurator Users" group.

>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bitcurator-users+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.

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Lara D. Friedman-Shedlov    (she / they)  (hear my name)

Digital Records Archivist | Archives & Special Collections 

University of Minnesota Libraries | lib.umn.edu | 612.626.7972

I acknowledge that the University of Minnesota is located on the traditional, ancestral and contemporary lands of Indigenous people and was built with money from slaveholders. 

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[Lara Friedman-Shedlov]

More info!

I can get Handbrake to convert the .iso files one at a time, but if I try to select more than one to add to the queue, either by selecting the containing folder, or by selecting more than one individual file using CTRL+clicking on files, I get this error:

Handbrake will successfully convert those same files if I do them one by one. But it objects if I try to do a batch, which is what I need to do. 

[Charles Hosale]

Hi Lara,

The Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC) has a python script that I believe will neatly convert iso to mp4 for you. https://github.com/bavc/videomachine/blob/master/dvd_transcoder.py. It’s written to manage some of the annoying parts of working with VOB files.

Good luck,

Charlie

On Dec 11, 2024, at 11:21 AM, 'Lara Friedman-Shedlov' via BitCurator Users <bitcurat...@googlegroups.com> wrote:



More info!

I can get Handbrake to convert the .iso files one at a time, but if I try to select more than one to add to the queue, either by selecting the containing folder, or by selecting more than one individual file using CTRL+clicking on files, I get this error:

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bitcurator-users/CAKWpb_YEd479ULtpFY6VAve94D4toHCVci%3D-bnkKMfODOeT-UA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Corey Forman]

Hi Lara,

 

Further to what Charles has suggested, that particular script will only work on Mac if not modified to work on a Linux system. That being said, I have modified it to work in Linux and will be able to provide you with a working automation shortly.

For the time being, the updated script is at https://github.com/digitalsleuth/videomachine/blob/master/dvd_transcoder.py . I am working on adding a recursive feature to it which should do what you need, and I have tested this as working on BitCurator. The only requirements for it to function is that ffmpeg is installed on the system somewhere.

 

Feel free to reach out offline as well if you wish to corey<at>digitalsleuth<dot>ca.

 

Corey Forman

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bitcurator-users/3749CE5F-71DC-4AA2-B99B-31AEDFC47C6A%40gmail.com.

[Charles Hosale]

Oh yes thanks for catching that Corey! I forgot to check system compatibility. It’ll be very helpful to have a portable version. I’ll share it with Morgan Morel and BAVC when you’re done.

Charlie

On Dec 11, 2024, at 12:46 PM, Corey Forman <co...@digitalsleuth.ca> wrote:



To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bitcurator-users/YT4PR01MB10613E7600C3D1C58A564B2E9DD3E2%40YT4PR01MB10613.CANPRD01.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM.

[Corey Forman]

Not a problem! Once I have the structure done, I’ll submit a Pull Request to their repo as well.

 

Cheers!

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[Corey Forman]

Good morning all,

 

Lara, I updated the script here (https://github.com/digitalsleuth/videomachine/blob/master/dvd_transcoder.py) so it will recursively browse through a folder structure for every ISO file and output the corresponding converted video format to the selected output directory. One usage example:

 

dvd_transcoder.py -i /home/bitcurator/Documents/ISO -o /home/bitcurator/Documents/MP4 -f H.264 -r

 

Let me know if this works for you, and if you would like any changes / upgrades made.

 

Cheers!

 

Corey

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[Lara Friedman-Shedlov]

As a follow-up to this question I wanted to share with everyone that thanks to Corey Foreman, the BAVC DVD Transcoder Python script has now been significantly updated and will now work in Windows, as well as Unix and Mac.  It has some improved error checking, more configuration options, and reporting as well.  It's exactly what I need to accomplish the task I need to do.  

Huge huge thank you to everyone who responded to my query, and most especially to Corey for all the time spent, and for patiently answering my questions and working through all the glitches.  What a great community!

Happiest of holidays to everyone who is celebrating!

/ Lara Friedman-Shedlov

[Lara Friedman-Shedlov]

Apologies for misspelling Corey's last name.  Should have been Forman.