I have recently been experimenting with the DVD Import feature (after upgrading to Studio 6). Just wanted to share my findings here.
In summary, it does not work very well. I imported my wedding video, and initially was excited because it took just ~20min to get the entire DVD in. What I found was multiple clips in the media pool, each one corresponding to a VOB on the DVD. I'd have preferred to have a single continuous clip instead of having to assemble my movie from multiple clips, but I can live with it.
The big problem is that out of 3 clips, the audio was shorter in length than the video in 2 of them. It amounts to only a fraction of a second of dropout, but a dropout is a dropout, and it was noticeable. Even worse, two of the clips were continuous when butted up against each other on the timeline, but two were not. In that spot, not only was there audio dropout, but the video suddenly jumped as it transitioned from one clip to the other. The dropped video amounted to a couple of sec or less, which is VERY noticeable.
I decided to try a different tack, so I used DVD Decryptor to combine all the VOBs on the DVD into a single VOB. I then simply dragged the VOB file onto the Studio timeline and it worked fine. I now have the entire video, plus audio, in Studio for me to edit. When I had tried to do this with the VOBs on the DVD (without running them through DVD Decryptor), Studio complained and would not do it. Thsi DVD does not have copy protection, so I don't know why it didn't work that way.
So my advice if you want to import a DVD into Studio is to combine all VOBs into one with DVD Decryptor, then just drag the resulting VOB onto the timeline. This method also works for commercial DVDs with copy protection, which can be very convenient. I verified it by ripping a commercial DVD with DVD Decryptor (saw that it removed the Macrovision), loaded it into Studio, and extracted the theme song so I could add it to a custom CD (the theme song, as well as the soundtrack, are not available). Worked like a charm!
Many thanks to Chienworks and TimL for taking the time to help me out. I never would have gotten to this point without their help.
Don
In summary, it does not work very well. I imported my wedding video, and initially was excited because it took just ~20min to get the entire DVD in. What I found was multiple clips in the media pool, each one corresponding to a VOB on the DVD. I'd have preferred to have a single continuous clip instead of having to assemble my movie from multiple clips, but I can live with it.
The big problem is that out of 3 clips, the audio was shorter in length than the video in 2 of them. It amounts to only a fraction of a second of dropout, but a dropout is a dropout, and it was noticeable. Even worse, two of the clips were continuous when butted up against each other on the timeline, but two were not. In that spot, not only was there audio dropout, but the video suddenly jumped as it transitioned from one clip to the other. The dropped video amounted to a couple of sec or less, which is VERY noticeable.
I decided to try a different tack, so I used DVD Decryptor to combine all the VOBs on the DVD into a single VOB. I then simply dragged the VOB file onto the Studio timeline and it worked fine. I now have the entire video, plus audio, in Studio for me to edit. When I had tried to do this with the VOBs on the DVD (without running them through DVD Decryptor), Studio complained and would not do it. Thsi DVD does not have copy protection, so I don't know why it didn't work that way.
So my advice if you want to import a DVD into Studio is to combine all VOBs into one with DVD Decryptor, then just drag the resulting VOB onto the timeline. This method also works for commercial DVDs with copy protection, which can be very convenient. I verified it by ripping a commercial DVD with DVD Decryptor (saw that it removed the Macrovision), loaded it into Studio, and extracted the theme song so I could add it to a custom CD (the theme song, as well as the soundtrack, are not available). Worked like a charm!
Many thanks to Chienworks and TimL for taking the time to help me out. I never would have gotten to this point without their help.
Don