Capturing from DVD

TomG wrote on 6/2/2003, 12:50 PM
As a follow-up to an earlier thread, I have been trying to edit some home movies that were transferred from 16mm to DVD-R. Is there any way to "capture" this DVD video on my Pioneer A05 so I can edit and reburn the footage using DVDA? A person I know who uses Premiere said this his how he does edits DVD footage in Premiere.

Comments

surfnturk wrote on 6/2/2003, 8:26 PM
I admit I am not the expert here, however, to the best of my knowledge you cannot capture straight from DVD. What you can do is rip and then convert DVD content. This gets sticky due to the pirating aspect of this operation.
You can do this to items you own. I use the following software. Smart Rip to rip the DVD project. DVD2AVI to convert it to an AVI file and then TMPEnc to create the final editable file.
There is a lot of info regarding this subject at http://www.dvdrhelp.com/
TomG wrote on 6/2/2003, 8:59 PM
Thanks, I guess that's one feature Premiere has that bests VV4.

I've spent the last 4 days using trial and error and trying to understand the copious information presented at dvdrhelp. I finally setteled on this process and it may be helpful to someone who may want to do the same. I am a hobbiest and I'm sure the pros have better processes/equipment but it worked for me. Remember, this was done with home movies copied to a DVD-R by a lab). Also, I had video only, no audio.

1. Copied the .vob file to my hard disk.
2. Used DVD2AVI
a. Load the .vob file (make sure you have them all if needed)
b. Video settings: Field operations = None: Color Space = YUV 4:2:2; Idct Algorithm = 32bit SSE2 MMX
c. Save Project which will create a .dv2 file
3. Load .dv2 file to VFABIConv to add avi marker and create the .avi access point.
a. Don't forget to register the file type with the provided .bat file (like I did) so VV4 can see it
4. Edit .avi file from above in VV4c
5. Render to MPEG-2 using NTSC DVD template (29.97 frame rate)
6. Author and burn in DVDA (others suggest just letting DVDA direct render and burn)

Using the above method finally eliminated the flicker and vertical lines encountered on my first attempts. I did learn there are lots of ways to skin a cat (no offense to pet lovers) and there were sure a lot of suggestions for which I am thankful for. The biggest "gotcha" is trying to decide among the myraid of settings that all the rippers/converters/edit programs have to offer in order to get the best product.
clearvu wrote on 6/2/2003, 9:22 PM
I captured DVD as follows:

External DVD player out to DV-cam. DV-cam (analog to Digital) output to Vegas and captured.

Worked absolutely fine.

Brian
Paul_Holmes wrote on 6/2/2003, 10:36 PM
Actually the easiest way to edit video taken off a DVD-R is to simply copy the VOB files to your harddrive, then bring them into the Vegas timeline. You can then render them as an avi, edit, then render as MPG2 ready for authoring.

If you demux the vob file into elementary streams and then edit the resulting mpg you're still going to have to re-encode it in the end, unless you only make simple cuts, so rendering as avi gives you the best quality to work with until your final output.
rebel44 wrote on 6/2/2003, 10:59 PM
I capture DVD trough analog,but I am loosing some quality in colors. It could be my video card what I am using to cature, but capturing from VHS have nice colors.
I have ATI 128 PRO. So far it is doing a good job in standard DV.
TomG wrote on 6/3/2003, 6:41 AM
Paul,

You know, I tried doing that but when I took the .vob file into the timeline, all I got was a very "compressed" clip to work with. When I tried to render as .avi, all I got was 30 seconds of a 27 minute shoot. Also the cursor froze up on the timeline after a while. You can't drag the .vob directly into the TL from explorer since VV4 doesn't recognize the .vob file but can import it, but the results are not very good as mentioned. Of course there were three differenct .vob files (_TS; _01_1; _01_2) and just tried the biggest of the three.

Do you do this using VV4? I sure wish I could discover the trick to do it the way you mentioned.

ClearVu,

I thought of that one too. Probably a good solution but since I had to tote my cam over to the recorder, hook it up, record, come back to computer, hook it up, and then capture.... well, I was just too lazy. My biggest problem was in the quality of the final product. If you find a process with no degradation (not sure what the correct terminology is, lossy? vertical lines? vibrations? jerkiness?) then go with what floats you boat.
Paul_Holmes wrote on 6/3/2003, 9:25 AM
Tom, I'm assuming you copied the vob file from the DVD drive to your hard-drive. Don't drag it from the DVD drive. That probably won't work. After that, dragging the file from your hard drive in the Explorer to the time-line should work fine. Make sure that you have "Show all files" in Explorer (the little folder icon on the right in the Explorer view).

I haven't gone through the process of rendering to AVI yet but one of the professional users on this forum, Keith Kolbo, has commented about this several times and it seems to work for him.

In my case I am able to put the VOB on the timeline and it plays just like the original mpg file. I assume that when I render to AVI it will have the same quality I've experienced in the past when I took mpg files and rendered to avi. Everything went well.