Copying Video On Cd To Hard Drive

[twynam2002]

Hiya I am hoping someone on here may be able to help me, I have a recording from a camcorder which is on a DVD, I am trying to save it to my hard drive so I can watch it without the cd. I have tried all sorts but have to say I am useless with pc's don't know much about them at all. I have copied the files using windows explorer, from DVD drive to Harddrive, but now when I click on the file that has copied the windows media player window comes up and comes up with a message windows cannot play this file as it may be corrupt or (can't remember the rest of the message) Do I need other software to do it or is it not possible?????

[RJ]

Hello and welcome to PC Mech,

if you have the Software Panasonic DVD Movie Album, you can use it to convert .VRO to .MPG.

If you don't have it, you can try renaming the .VRO to .MPG and then demux. It might not always work, though.
You can also download a trial of TMPGEnc DVD Author (TDA), I believe it can import .VRO files as well.

RJ

[twynam2002]

Hiya thank you for the welcome and you help, I don't think it is a .VRO filename. It says .DAT

[chokluvva]

Hi Twynam2002.
You could download VLC media player http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ which is freeware and plays most formats. Then rename the .dat file to .mpg and see if it
will play it.

[RJ]

.DAT ?

What is the brand and model of your camcorder ? I've never heard of .dat before.. . at least not as a recording format that camcorders use.

RJ

[QuickSilver]

Ok, quick question just to clerify something. Is the DVD that you have the video on an actual DVD formatted movie that plays in a DVD player, or is it just a DVD that has had the raw digital footage from the camcorder copied on to it?

[RJ]

Is the DVD that you have the video on an actual DVD formatted movie that plays in a DVD player

No. It's something else. If it was a DVD-Video compatible disc, it'd have BUP, IFO and VOB files on it.

RJ

[QuickSilver]

Well what the heck is .DAT? I've never seen that file extention on anything to do with video.

[alfie2]

Originally Posted by twynam2002 Hiya thank you for the welcome and you help, I don't think it is a .VRO filename. It says .DAT

".DAT" is a VCD format, it contains a mpeg1 video stream and format info inside. you should be able play it in WMP in winxp, unless you dont have the wmp version 9.0 update from MicroSoft.
also, a freeware called VCDGEAR can extract the mpeg1 video from the ".DAT" file.
hope this helps.

[QuickSilver]

Originally Posted by alfie2 ".DAT" is a VCD format, it contains a mpeg1 video stream and format info inside. you should be able play it in WMP in winxp, unless you dont have the wmp version 9.0 update from MicroSoft. also, a freeware called VCDGEAR can extract the mpeg1 video from the ".DAT" file. hope this helps.

Thanks much alfie2. I learn something new every day from you guys!

[twynam2002]

Hiya soory I havn't been back on for a few days, thanks for all your help so far. The video footage is of me doing a skydive and was recorded onto a DVD by the people that filmed it, I just wanted to save it to my PC, to upload to a website, you have been very helpful but as I said before and am useless on PC talk, how do I find out if I have wmp version 9.0 update from MicroSoft,or if I get VCDGEAR as suggested above which can extract the mpeg1 video from the ".DAT" file what do I do with VCDGEAR to get it to play the file. Sorry if I am confusing everyone cause I am def confusing myself.

[alfie2]

Originally Posted by twynam2002 Hiya soory I havn't been back on for a few days, thanks for all your help so far. The video footage is of me doing a skydive and was recorded onto a DVD by the people that filmed it, I just wanted to save it to my PC, to upload to a website, you have been very helpful but as I said before and am useless on PC talk, how do I find out if I have wmp version 9.0 update from MicroSoft,or if I get VCDGEAR as suggested above which can extract the mpeg1 video from the ".DAT" file what do I do with VCDGEAR to get it to play the file. Sorry if I am confusing everyone cause I am def confusing myself.

To make sure if your ".DAT" is VCD format open it in "WORDPAD" under xp
"File ->Open" ;(make sure file-type is setted to ALL *.*)
after opening the file, which could take a few minutes, if the first 4 letters in the opened file is "RIFF" followed by some strange characters then it is a "VCD" file. Close file, exit wordpad.

Vcdgear extracts Mpeg file from ".dat" file only;
( choose "DAT -> MPEG" in the pull-down menu)

Noted: VCDGEAR also REPAIRs some corrupt/damaged files during conversion!

the resulting file with ".mpg" extension is playable on WMP under xp.