Compressing VOB files?

[rurounihime.livejournal.com]

Does anyone have suggestions on the best way to compress VOB files? I'm making a video from clips I've made using DVD Shrink and DVDFab, but the files are just too large to work with in any functional capacity. I've heard HandBrake is a good way to go, as well as SUPER and AutoGordianKnot... Do you have a favorite?

I'm working on a PC and using Pinnacle to make the actual vid (it handles the VOB files well but does not compress them, though the vid it turns out is AVI. I am concerned because I did a test run vid made up of exactly two clips and a ten second mp3, and the file ended up at 48.3 MB).

Thank you so much!

Comments

[littleheaven70.livejournal.com]

I second working with the VOB files uncompressed. I use Sony Vegas which also edits them happily. I set my project properties to match the media properties, then output the vid using those settings, and it's normally between 700MB and 1GB. Then I take my shiny, full-quality vid and compress it using Handbrake to an MP4 file of around 50MB and it comes out looking great. You definitely want to do any compressing on the finished vid, rather than editing with degraded quality clips, IMO.

[rurounihime.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much for the advice. It's really helpful. I'm new to this... It's great to get tips from the people on this comm.

[littleheaven70.livejournal.com]

You're welcome!

You might find that your transitions/effects render better this way, too. I ended up using this method because if Vegas was rendering the file and compressing it at the same time, the end result was not great.