OT: Ripping DVD to .avi

smashguy37 wrote on 12/28/2007, 10:58 PM
Hey guys, I'm capturing and burning all my old miniDV tapes for storage/backup purposes and there is one I just finished and I want to go back and change some title dates. I've gone through a bunch of programs with no luck, and it confuses me to no end. All I want to do, instead of re-capturing and such, is take the DVD and convert it back to .avi with no quality loss, dump it into Vegas, change my titling then render back out to MPEG2, with no quality loss. If this isn't possible I'll just re-capture the tape tomorrow, but is there a good program that is fairly bare bones to do this? Thanks.

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 12/29/2007, 5:18 AM
You're outta luck. There is no way to convert from DVD to AVI and back to DVD without quality loss. Converting to MPEG2 always loses quality. There just ain't no way around it.

Even if you accept the quality loss, this is a slow process. It will be faster in the long run to recapture the tape.
UlfLaursen wrote on 12/29/2007, 6:20 AM
Hi

There is this function inside Vegas 'import DVD camcorder disc'. You can use that to try it, but as Kelly states, you will loose quality when you reencode already encoded stuff.

Recapture the tape is probably the best way.

/Ulf
smashguy37 wrote on 12/29/2007, 6:39 AM
Thanks guys, I thought about it some more and realized I'd be re-encoding and losing quality. Well, back to capturing...
Chienworks wrote on 12/29/2007, 7:16 AM
Capturing can also be a nearly zero-time activity. I'll do captures while i'm editing another project, or out to dinner, or going to bed, or walking the dog, or working in the woodshop, etc. Capturing doesn't require my attention so i use that time for other activities.
blink3times wrote on 12/29/2007, 8:35 AM
Contrary to popular belief DV (AVI) IS in fact lossy. Not withstanding, there are losses involved with each conversion that you do so they should be kept to a minimum. Converting from mpeg to avi then back to mpeg again WILL result in losses. If you can't get the original DV footage and must resort to importing from the dvd, then it is better to simply stay in the mpeg format and edit from there. You will incur less loss this way... especially if you can smart render working on standard mpeg.
baysidebas wrote on 12/29/2007, 8:50 AM
Hey blink, while it is true that avi is compressed, as long as you stay within the format while copying [straight copying, no reencoding ] you will not suffer degradation of the images. This is also true of the mpeg format. The quality loss always occurs when transcoding between formats.
blink3times wrote on 12/29/2007, 9:08 AM
"as long as you stay within the format while copying ....."
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Well I think that kind of goes without saying. Quite frankly I can't think of ANYTHING that incurs a loss in a straight copy situation.

It's the reencoding and converting that is the issue.
baysidebas wrote on 12/29/2007, 10:49 AM
... as long as we remain in the digital domain that is. Those of us old enough to remember analog, are well aware of the generational loss incurred in copying analog video. Although one could make a case that analog copying involves transcoding of a sort. What a trip down memory lane that triggered, U-Matic tape machines [as well as others] provided dub terminals to minimize generational loss by eliminating the analog video step when copying tapes.