I have a couple hundred DVD-r that I need to convert to a digital format. In using Media Encoder (9.2.0.26 v.2015.2, on a Win 7 64bit, 8gb memory workstation) I found the ideal solution: I just copied the VOB files from the dvd to the Watch folder I set up, and boom -- it would start encoding the new files straight-away. The default from Media Encoder was listed as H.264 outputting the mp4 files. All this was right out of the box, no special presets on my part. Each half hour video was generating about a 2.2 gb file in mp4 and quality was very good given the source material.
Then after a dozen or so of these VOB files worked all of a sudden a VOB file was output into a mp4 file which was formatted incorrectly. The new mp4 file was about 50% of the original width (these are standard 4:3 television shows), so everything is distorted into very elongated people. The VOB files look the same as the ones that were encoding correctly and all the discs came from the same Sony dvd recording machine, but now many of the shows on these discs are useless in that format.
I contacted Adobe support, and they couldn't figure out why the VOB files had this inconsistency, but the tech came up with a workaround by creating a preset that used Quicktime instead of mp4, and this workaround only succeeded IF the resulting mov file was played in Vlan player (if the mov file was played in several other players the mov files showed the same horizontally screwed up format). No other player worked on these mov files, AND the mov files were now 24 gb with no better quality than the 2.2 gb mp4 files. And I still can't tell in advance which dvd-r files can use the original default settings in Media Encoder that generates the nice mp4 file -- so the only way I can proceed is to try every file in the original way, and when it fails, regenerate it in the mov format and only play it on Vlan. Arghhh.
Anybody have any thoughts on why these VOB files are producing such radically different results, and any practical way to make them all perform like the "good" VOBs?
By the way, while the encoding is taking place on the files, the encoding window shows the video in the correct format, not squished, if that means anything.