I’m blogging about this because I had a terrible time finding a solution to my problem and I want to help other people who are having the same problem.
A while back I was digitizing old VHS tapes using my DVD/VCR combo player/recorder. I was creating raw DVDs from old VHS tapes and then taking the raw DVDs and copying them onto my laptop for editing. But sometimes the VOB files that were created by the DVD recorder would have terribly incorrect lengths when viewed on my PC. For example, a 30 minute VOB file would show up and play as a 10 second long VOB file on my PC. This incorrect time was keeping my PC software from being able to view and edit the VOB files. Apparently this is a fairly common problem with some DVD recorders, since this VOB length information is not actually used by many consumer electronic devices.
It took me a while, but I was finally able to find a simple and free utility called MPEG Streamclip that was able to fix the VOB file length data without having to completely render the entire VOB. This program has a terrible user interface and it also has a couple of quirks. For example, it gives me a couple errors regarding some Apple Quicktime software that is not installed on my system, but it did what I needed it to do anyways. But what do you expect for free, huh?
When you tell it to open a VOB that has incorrect length information, it realizes the problem during the open operation and prompts you to fix the timecode breaks or not. Once it fixes the timecode breaks, you can save as MPG (not Export … Save As) which doesn’t perform any processing nor rendering of the file because the VOB was in MPG format already, or you can export into a number of different video formats.
One other thing. MPEG Streamclip does not require admin rights to install on your PC. Just download the zip, unzip it, and run the executable. Here is the website where you can download the utility. Have fun!
Kurt
Postscript: In January 2017 I got a new PC and MPEG Streamclip refused to run until I installed the Alternate Quicktime package that it pointed me to. This Alternate Quicktime package does require admin rights to install.
Thanks so much! a big help after many hours frustration.
i had to install quicktime alternative 1.81 first before I could install it.
Was able to get software functioning, but it did not address my core issue. duration is still too short. even so thanks for the tips, this was a good result to try out