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I have a VCD with 22 minutes of video on it. I would like to retain this footage and throw away the VCD.

I can play the whole thing with VLC ("open disc -> vcd -> /dev/sr0 -> play"): all 22 minutes of the main track. I don't believe there's any other content aside from the main track. I can seek to anywhere I want to within the 22 minute track.

If I mount /dev/sr0 /media/vcd and then try to copy the only file from the MPEGAV folder, I get an I/O error, with an empty destination file.

VLC has a "convert" option in addition to "play". When I use this I actually get a good OGG file back, after it runs through the video in painful real-time. I guess it dubs it frame-by-frame. But the file is only 10 minutes long, leaving 12 minutes off of the track.

Handbrake doesn't detect it's track titles, unfortunately.

I don't know if I should start getting involved with GNU ddrescue or if it's because VCDs somehow encode their data sectors differently. Anyway, I'm in way over my head and if anyone knows how I could get that video track off the thing, feel free to share!

Edit: I should note that I also have access to a Windows computer

user259774
  • 73

2 Answers2

1

MPlayer solution

To preview track for example 3 use command

mplayer vcd://3

To convert selected track use command.

mencoder vcd://3 -audio-preload 0.0 -o file.avi -mc 0 -oac copy -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=2000

VCD disk has usually many tracks, sample output from MPlayer:

MPlayer SVN-r36521-4.8.2 (C) 2000-2013 MPlayer Team
...
Playing vcd://3.
track 01:  adr=1  ctrl=4  format=2  00:02:00  mode: 1
track 02:  adr=1  ctrl=4  format=2  00:48:00  mode: 1
track 03:  adr=1  ctrl=4  format=2  00:52:07  mode: 1
track 04:  adr=1  ctrl=4  format=2  08:17:26  mode: 1
track 05:  adr=1  ctrl=4  format=2  15:42:14  mode: 1
track 06:  adr=1  ctrl=4  format=2  23:19:19  mode: 1
track 07:  adr=1  ctrl=4  format=2  30:53:35  mode: 1
track 08:  adr=1  ctrl=4  format=2  38:40:58  mode: 1
track 09:  adr=1  ctrl=4  format=2  46:16:22  mode: 1
track 10:  adr=1  ctrl=4  format=2  52:49:40  mode: 1
track 11:  adr=1  ctrl=4  format=2  61:44:66  mode: 1
MPEG-PS file format detected.
VIDEO:  MPEG1  352x288  (aspect 8)  25.000 fps  1150.0 kbps (143.8 kbyte/s)

Preview all tracks and rip if needed :)

Source: Convert VCD to AVI using mencoder

MariuszS
  • 211
0

I had the same problem and I found the solution.

Firstly, the huge file from the MPEGAV folder is a MPEG-PS file, even though it has a file extension of DAT. It is the video itself. So you only need to copy this file.

If I mount /dev/sr0 /media/vcd and then try to copy the only file from the MPEGAV folder, I get an I/O error, with an empty destination file.

However, as you have already indicated above, the copy operation failed with an I/O error. I think it has something to do with the Linux driver for the CD file system (ISO-9660). So the solution that I have found is to copy the file using Windows.

Once the file is copied out of the ISO-9660 file system into Windows (NTFS file system), then you can convert it into other standard formats (e.g. AVI or MP4 format).

Joshua Kan
  • 327