A friend has a completed DVD she is entering in several festivals. She has decided to remove the countdown lead-in and has asked if I can do that for her. I have the (unprotected) DVD. Is it possible in Vegas or another tool to remove the 15 seconds and smart render so there is no quality loss?
If the original DVD was created in Vegas, it should be possible by precisely matching media properties and smart render.
That said, I would use Videoredo +.
Musicvid10, I doubt the original DVD was created in Vegas. When I drop the VTS_01_0.IFO on the Vegas 12 timeline I choose to match properties, but then when I render (as you predict) it doesn't smart render. I realize there are a number of Vegas render properties that may be out of sync with the original. This leads to two followup questions:
1. Are there any tools that can retrieve all the render settings I would need for Vegas from the original?
2. Does Videoredo Plus somehow match the original's settings so it can smart render?
PS, I have enabled no-recompress long-GOP rendering in preferences but not sure if this applies to mpeg.
Musicvid10, thanks for the offer to help. I was surprised to learn I could get a fully functional trial of VideoReDo Plus and I was able to cut the intro without drama ;-). Nice tool. So I'll spare you from interpreting the mediainfo, but it was very nice of you to offer that.