Trouble Editing XviD DVDrips

[chronos]

I have several different XviD .avi files that I am trying to cut up into short clips, then use the different short clips in an editor to make a video.

Most of the .avi files have either AC3 or MP3 audio, and they are various aspect ratios and sizes. Nearly all of them are XviD encoded DVDrips.

I have all the required codecs installed and all of the videos play fine for me using MPC, but I get strange results when I try to edit them in Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 or Sony Vegas Pro 8.0c. The only editor that does not have any issues with editing them in Windows Movie Maker, but it puts black bars on the sides or top and bottom that I do not want.... and I would prefer to use a better editor.

In Premiere Pro CS4 The audio works fine on most of the videos, but the video is stuck showing only one or two frames when I try to play or scrub through them. Sometimes the audio will not work properly either.

In Sony Vegas Pro 8.0c the video seems to work fine and I can scrub through, make edits, etc. but the audio does not ever show up. When I put any of the videos into my timeline there is simply no audio track.

I have tried various different codecs and filters but nothing seems to work.

I have tried running my avi files through AVIDemux using different audio settings but can still never get any audio to show up in Vegas.

I find it odd that Windows Movie Maker can handle all these videos without any problems, but Vegas and Premiere can not.

Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions? This is driving me nuts.

[guns1inger]

So many problems.

Problem one. Divx is a very poor format to edit with. It can be made to work in premiere or Vegas, but it takes more effort than it is worth, and it is still unstable, slow, and the results are often not.

Problem two. You will get black bars if you have mixed aspect ratios and resolutions. What did you expect ? If you have a 4:3 project and insert 16:9 (or wider) material then you will get bars top and bottom to keep the correct aspect ratio. if you have a 16:9 project and drop in 4:3 material, you will get pillarboxing. if you don't want that then you have to use the editor to zoom into the clip until it fills the screen. However that will probably look like crap because of . . .

Problem three. If these DVDrips (sic) are the usual low resolution, over-compressed crap you find on torrent and p2p networks then zooming in will produce large compression artifacts and other ugliness, and recompressing after editing will only compound the issue.

If you insist on editing such poor quality material, re-encode it all to huffyuv or lagarith, with PCM audio. The files will be big, they will be loaded by Premiere or Vegas without any problems.

[chronos]

Thanks for the reply.

The problem with Windows Movie Maker inserting black bars is happening when I am simply cutting out single clips from my videos..... I am not mixing multiple aspect ratios in the same project. I did not even see any options to zoom in.... but I really don't know Windows Movie Maker very well and prefer not to use it anyway as it's capabilities are limited.

Re-encoding to a format that Vegas or Premiere can handle sounds like a good option if the problem is that these editors simply can't handle XviD.

Can you point me to any guides on how to convert my XviD videos to huffyuv or lagarith with PCM audio?

**Edit**
I installed the huffyuv codec and used AVIDemux to convert a clip from one of my videos into huffyuv with pcm audio avi.... you were not joking when you said the files would be big... this 2 minute clip I encoded is nearly 500mb... but even worse, I can't even get Premiere or Vegas to import it....

[jagabo]

You need a 64 bit version of HuffYUV if you are using a 64 bit version of Vegas.

http://members.optusnet.com.au/squid_80/

[chronos]

I am on 64-bit version of Windows Vista, but I am using the 32-bit version of Vegas 8.0c.

[citanool]

Sorry if intruding but, does MKV or other container support clips of differing bitrates without re-encoding, possibly like chapters or a playlist ?

[jagabo]

I am on 64-bit version of Windows Vista, but I am using the 32-bit version of Vegas 8.0c.

The information in this post might help:
https://forum.videohelp.com/topic332208.html#1723154

[chronos]

Sorry if intruding but, does MKV or other container support clips of differing bitrates without re-encoding, possibly like chapters or a playlist ?

LOL, is that a joke?