Flask or DVD2AVI Questions

glank wrote on 7/8/2003, 10:57 PM

Before I download either Flask or DVD2AVI --

1) How long does it take to convert a DVD to a usable form for VV with Flask or DVD2AVI? 2) Can you convert pieces of the DVD without converting the whole DVD? 3) Is the DVD converted to AVI or to MPEG2 and if AVI how big is the file that is created?

Any comments are appreciated.

Comments

glank wrote on 7/9/2003, 10:10 PM

Any input on the use of either is appreciated.

mikkie wrote on 7/10/2003, 10:12 AM

Go to dvdrhelp.com, doom9.org, & digital-digest.com first off for all sorts of guides.

As far as Vegas goes, it'll accept avi files, wav audio, and dvd2avi thru vfapi is in my opinion the best way for vegas to handle mpg2.

sacherjj wrote on 7/10/2003, 1:46 PM

I use DVD2AVI and the VFAPI Codec. Setup audio to save as a wav. Save the DVD2AVI project. This will create a Wav file of the DVD video, and is the only time consuming step. Use the VFAPI Codec to frameserve the DVD2AVI project, directly into Vegas.

glank wrote on 7/13/2003, 8:12 PM

Does anyone know how long it takes to convert a DVD to Vegas using DVD2AVI and do you have to convert the whole DVD or can you take a piece of the DVD. Also is there any degradation of quality?

farss wrote on 7/14/2003, 6:17 AM

The question of how long it takes depends on the length of string...ah I mean how fast a PC you are using. There may be some loss of quality compared to the source that the DVD was prepared from to start with. Compared to the quality you see when playing back the DVD I doubt if you're going to notice it if there is any any but there are a lot of variables involved.

Perhaps if you were to explain what your final aim is someone could give some better advice. Perhaps there is another path you could follow.

Erk wrote on 7/14/2003, 10:55 AM

Glank,

Yes, you can use DVD2AVI to convert only a part of a DVD. Open a VOB up in DVD2AVI, highlight a section using the sliders, and convert that portion to AVI. I convert it to uncompressed for best quality. There is some quality loss.

G

mikkie wrote on 7/14/2003, 11:17 AM

"Does anyone know how long it takes to convert a DVD to Vegas using DVD2AVI and do you have to convert the whole DVD or can you take a piece of the DVD. Also is there any degradation of quality? "

Again, the guides available at the previously posted sites will give you more info then can be presented here. And the prog files are normally pretty small, & so not talking any appreciable download times to give them a look see.

That said, there are a number of programs available that allow you to take portions or all of a DVD and save, recompress, convert them to whatever - many offer a simplified setup where you check one or two options and press go. Which methods you choose depends on what your final goal is, level of knowledge re: DVD structure, how much time you want to spend and so on. If your concern is primarily speed of conversion, a few programs will convert all or portions of a DVD, optionally to a more highly compressed version, without going through a full re-encoding process.

However, don't think you're going to find a lot of specifics here, both because of space limitations, the thought that DVD legal issues are complex and worrisome to many folks, & the fact it's a bit off topic.

To answer your ? a bit: If you take a portion of a DVD and don't alter it, the quality remains identical. If you recompress or convert to another format, you will lose some quality. Will the difference be noticable? Can't say, as it depends on how much the original mpg2 is altered, recompressed. In your favor, DVD players limit the quality of the picture that reaches your TV to discourage analog copying, so there is often a bit of room where you can degrade the picture, sometimes by doubling the amount of compression or more, without any noticable degradation during playback to a TV.

When you use DVD2AVI -> vfapi, you are not altering the original file, but rather creating a software chain of sorts that allows an NLE as VV4c to access the original data indirectly, through this other software. At that point, when you open a VFAPI created avi file in an NLE, you haven't altered the original, created a duplicate, any of that. Depending on the playable length of the VOB files, saving the proj in DVD2AVI and converting that file in vfapi takes about 2 - 8 minutes. From there, everything is up to you... Do you want to cut the video, otherwise edit it, add FX, recompress & how, all these will determine along with the speed of your hardware how long it will take before you have your proj. rendered.