Is it possible to re-edit DVDs

[Marlow]

I was wondering is it posssible to rip a DVD and then re-edit it, like cuting scenes out or adding deleted scenes back in, then burning it on to SVCD or DVD-R?

[Trust_No_1]

You pose a very interesting question. I too want to do my own edit of a movie by deleting some scenes and adding deleted scenes back in. There are few options:

1) Rip the DVD and demux the VOBS etc. This will produce the separate AC3 audio and MPEG2 video files. In order to edit you will then need to mux the audio and video files back together. Now this is problem #1 - how is this done? I would assume in a convoluted manner.. Assuming you now have an MPEG2 file with audio. You will then need to edit the MPEG2 files with an MPEG2 editor. Problem #2 - editing MPEG2 is not a good idea because all the video data is not completely present. since it is compressed data. Also you will need to have frame accurracy. In theory this is possible but I'm not sure it pans out in practice.

2) Convert the VOB files to AVI for editing in a tool such as Adobe Premiere. This will produce massive multi GB files. There are programs to do this (look in the "tools" section) but I have not been impressed with the resulting video quality. Remember the converted file will be huge since it will be essentially uncompressed. The last thing you want to do is have video that is a second generation compressed copy. I know that Premiere gets funky when editing extremely large uncompressed video files.

3) Connect your DVD player to a miniDV device and record on to miniDV tape. Then capture from the miniDV device back into your computer via firewire and then start editing as you normally would. This approach offers the following advantages:
a) No MPEG2 conversion takes place.
b) The video and sound is in digital format.
c) Your editing software will be able to easily handle miniDV video.

The only disadvantages are:
a) The connection between the DVD player and the miniDV device would normally be SVideo. This is still good but it aint digital.
b) Most DVD players will not allow you to record from a protected DVD. The workaround is to rip the DVD first and then record from the "back up" copy.
c) The audio is 2 channel stereo and not 5.1.

After much thought and experimentation, I decided to go with option 3 and it works fine. The video and audio quality is excellent. Trust me I'm a quality cop.

If anyone has any further suggestions, I would welcome them.

[Marlow]

Thanks for your reply. I think there might be a easier way to do this but since I have a dinosaur PC and won't get a new one until july this is all pure theory.

Take a DVD, rip and convert it to one large (atleast 750 to850 MB) Divx file. Then use VirtualDub to cut the movie at each part a new scene would appear. Label the cut files in odd numbers and put them into a seperate folder. Then rip and convert the deleted scenes into Divx files with the same bitrate as the movie files. Number these files in even numbers and put them into the folder with the other cut files. Arrange that folder's icons by name and you should have both the movie and deleted scenes arranged in the proper order. Now Use VirtualDub to join the files and hopefuly you'd now have a new complete movie file with the deleted scenes edited back in. Take this file and and use Tmpegenc plus to encode it to mpeg 2 then burn it to SVCD or DVD.

You wouldn't get 5.1 surround sound with this system, it would have to be 2.0 stereo, but the picture quality should be pretty good, maybe not refrence DVD quality but certainly watchable.

Do you think this system would work or am I missing something.

[MOVIEGEEK]

Ulead VideoStudio 7 and Pinnacle Studio 8 will edit on disc if you use a DVD+R/W.Anyway you edit your original it will be reencoded by an authoring program.

[Marlow]

MOVIEGEEK,

I just noticed the sad face you put at the bottom of your post. Why is reencoding with an authoring program bad? Or did I misunderstand you?

[Don2050]

Marlow Posted: 2003 Apr 18 02:57

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MOVIEGEEK,

I just noticed the sad face you put at the bottom of your post. Why is reencoding with an authoring program bad? Or did I misunderstand you?

Loss of quality perhaps......

[Trust_No_1]

Here's an update to my previous post...

This method allows you to create and edit an AVI file from a DVD. The resultant edited video quality is of excellent quality and can be burned to DVD. Obviously it is not a digital duplicate because the AVI file was encoded to MPEG2 for burning to DVD. However, to the naked eye the quality is indistinguishable. The only downside is that it is 2.0 stereo because the AC3 5.1 is down mixed. However that's a compromise I'm willing to take.

The reason why I want to do this is so that I can create my own cut of a DVD movie. I want to be able to delete scenes, trim scenes and add back in any deleted scenes etc using Adobe Premiere. It's imperative that I have frame accurate editing, no huge amounts of storage requirements and I'm not sacrificing quality i.e. no re-encoding etc. I tried a variety of methods which gave questionable to reasonable results but the following method is what I believe is the simplest. Most of the information was gathered from various AV forums.

Message to all you “my method is better than your method cops” - as always there is a multitude of ways to skin a cat! I’m sure everyone has their favorite way of doing things.

List of required software:
1) Smartripper or DVDDecrypter.

2) DVD2AVI - this program reads a VOB file and extracts the audio as a WAV file and creates a video reference file. It does a whole bunch of other stuff too. The website http://arbor.ee.ntu.edu.tw/~jackei/dvd2avi/index.html provides background info and a link to the software.

3) VFAPIConvEN - this program reads the DVD2AVI video reference file and creates an AVI wrapper. It also includes a codec to allow any Windows video program to read the AVI wrapper file. Just run the included bat file. The website http://arbor.ee.ntu.edu.tw/~jackei/dvd2avi/guide.html provides more information and a link to the software.

4) Restream - this program displays and allows for modification of MPEG2 file information. I found this very useful when determining the correct MPEG2 compression values to use. The website http://shh.dvdboard.de/restream.html provides background information and a link to the software.

The process is very simple:
1) Rip the DVD using Smartripper or DVD Decrypter. Make sure you do this is file mode and grab all the appropriate VOB files.

Strip out any unwanted streams, sub pictures or multi angle pointers. You can use IFOEDIT for this or do it at the ripping stage - what ever is appropriate. I ripped and removed any unwanted streams.

2) Run DVD2AVI and select:

[Open]
Select the first VOB file - hit open. A list of VOBS will appear - hit OK.


[Audio]
This is where you specify which audio track you want to process and save as a 48k WAV file.

option Output Method -> Decode to WAV (AC3, LPCM)
option Dolby Digital Decode -> Dolby Surround Downmix. * Only if you're using an AC3 5.1 track.

[Save Project]

Save D2V (DVD2AVI Project File]
This saves the project file to be used later by VFAPIConvEN. The audio WAV file is also generated

Make sure the process of saving D2V is FINISHED before you close DVD2AVI.

5) Run VFAPIConvEN and select

[Add Job]
Select the .D2V file that was created by DVD2AVI. Specify a filename and hit OK. Then hit Run.

This creates the AVI wrapper file.

6) That's it! You now have an AVI file that can be edited with your video editing software.

The following steps are what I used for Adobe Premiere 6.5.
1) Edit the AVI and WAV file.
2) Export the timeline to MPEG using the built in Main Concept MPEG decoder. Ensure the correct MPEG compression settings are defined i.e. aspect ratio, progressive/interlace, and upper/lower field. Use Restream to check the original MPEG compression values from the source DVD VOB files. I used VOBrator to produce an M2V file - use whatever method you are comfortable with. This is important because the wrong setting e.g. lower field instead of upper field will result in that "combed" artifact effect etc

7) Author the DVD. You should have a DVD with all your edits that looks just as good as the original.

Gotchas
1) Make sure you install the VFAPI codec otherwise the AVI wrapper file is not recognized.
2) Don't delete the source VOB files until you have finished the editing project. The AVI wrapper file contains pointers to them.
3) Make sure your MPEG compression settings are the same as the original DVD. You will encounter artifact issues if they are not the same. Also check the aspect ratio as well.
4) Make sure you have stripped out any unwanted streams, sub pictures and multi angles pointers. You'll have an editing nightmare if you leave multi angles in because the video is repeated for each angle.

Here are some statistics using "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace" as an example.

Main Movie Files:
The WAV file is 1.5GB and the AVI wrapper file is 17.6MB. Remember the video data is still in the 7 VOB files ripped from the DVD. It took approximately 10 minutes to create the AVI and WAV file.

1,569,005,612 phanmen AC3 T01 3_2ch 448Kbps 48KHz.wav
587,342 phanmen.d2v
17,635,840 phanmen_d2v_vfapi.avi
1,073,577,984 VTS_06_1.VOB
1,073,344,512 VTS_06_2.VOB
1,073,324,032 VTS_06_3.VOB
1,073,268,736 VTS_06_4.VOB
1,073,702,912 VTS_06_5.VOB
1,073,580,032 VTS_06_6.VOB
132,573,184 VTS_06_7.VOB

Deleted Scenes Files:
The WAV file is 432MB and the AVI wrapper file is 5.5MB. Remember the video data is still in the 2 VOB files ripped from the DVD. It took approximately 45 seconds to create the AVI and WAV file.

432,418,796 pmdeletedScenes AC3 T01 2_0ch 192Kbps 48KHz.wav
177,562 pmdeletedScenes.d2v
5,537,792 pmdeletedScenes_d2v_vfapi.avi
1,073,709,056 VTS_08_1.VOB
343,263,232 VTS_08_2.VOB

The files were created on a PC running Win2k with a 2.4GHZ Pentium CPU, 240GB disk space and 1GB memory.

[txpharoah]

Too much work.

1. Use VOBedit to extract the audio/video from VOB files.
2. Convert the PCM/AC3 to MP2 in BeSweet.
3. Remux audio/video in TMPGenc.
4. Load muxed MPEG2 file into Premiere.
5. Edit.
6. Export with MainConcept.
7. Done

or
4. Load file in TMPGenc. Use MPEG Tools to chop the sucker all up and put back together again the way you want it.
5. Done

I've done this before several times to fix discs made by people that didn't know what they were doing when they made the discs. It's how I improve post-production.

[Trust_No_1]

No offence ... as I said earlier there are always more than one way to skin a cat. One man's art is another man's trash etc.

As far as I can see both methods amount to the same thing.

Editing MPEG2 using Adobe Premiere 6.5 has never given me any good results because it's way too slow mainly because it's not built to natively support MPEG2 editing.

Also, it depends on how much editing you are actually doing in Premiere.

[txpharoah]

Yeah, 6 one way, half-dozen the other. Never had problems with Premiere, but I also have LSX and Panasonic encoders.

[Nitemare]

For Marlow

Using a DIVX file to re-edit can work, but you may not be able to cut the file EXACTLY where you want to. You can only cut a DivX avi (or all avi's?) on a keyframe. To my knowledge, these are set during the creation of the file.

If you want to use Divx, I recommend a mixture of all of these great suggestions. After ripping the DVD use DVD2AVI and the VFAPI converter to open the files in VirtualDub. Plan your project out and select your start and end frames for each cut of the film and create all of your DivX files from the main movie first, making sure that your video source is the vfapi converted file and your audio source is the WAV audio created by DVD2AVI. This way you can ensure frame accuracy editing, audio synch, and that each segment has the same resolution and framerate. (This is very important)

Then do the same with all of your deleted scenes making certain that they are encoded with the same resolution and framerate as the main movie segments. If you've planned carefully, then you can simply number all of the main movie segments as odd numbers and each deleted scene as an appropriate even number. Join them using virtualdub and either use this file in your authoring software or frameserve it to CCE or TMPEG.

If you use a high enough bitrate you can achieve really excellent results without going over 4 gigs in final size. I use this method myself since all of the tools are freeware and I'm cheap. I have made my own cuts of both Harry Potter movies and they are excellent. One caveat though ... make sure an audio editor is on hand as the deleted scenes are almost never the same volume as the main movie.

Also... resist the urge to make the main movie on large divx to chop apart. You will NOT be able to cut excatly where you want to... trust me!

[Marlow]

Thanks alot everyone.
This is really helpful. BTW I'm planing to get a new computer soon, I doubt my current one could even begin to handle a project like this. (500mhz celeron, 5.98 gig HD, no DVD rom etc.) What size proceser, HD, DVD burner, etc would you guys recomend for this type of work?

[Trust_No_1]

Marlow

This is not so easy because it really depends on your budget etc. The bottomline is that you need a fast processor (minimum 1GHZ), disk space (minimum 80GB) and RAM (minimum 256MB). Go for as much bang for your buck as possible. Personally speaking, I would say 2GHZ CPU, 120GB hard drive and 512MB is a good spec for an AV pc.

As far as DVD writer is concerned - the SONY DRU500 for speed and future compatibility.

Also Win2K is a good stable OS for AV work. Maybe someone can comment on Win XP?

Obviously, do some google research as well to get a good concensus of opinion.

[txpharoah]

HW:
P4 (not AMD+) CPU
RDRAM (expensive, but worth it) or DDR RAM
Windows 2K not XP
At least 80 gig HD if not more
-R burner, Cendyne usually cheaper (Pioneer 3rd party)
ATI All In Wonder capture card (or Canopus/Matrox AGP card)

SW:
DVDit!
TMPGenc Plus
Adobe Premiere 6.5 (with Adobe MPEG Encoder)

With that setup, you can do nearly anything you want, and it'll be excellent or perfect, not just good or okay.

Look at my COMP SPECS, the 2nd system only cost me $575 to build in January 2003. May be cheaper now. It has the 105 4x burner too. (1st and 3rd ones REAL expensive, but bought in early 2001 is why.)

And I didn't put "you get what you pay for" in my signature because it sounds cool. It's serious. You get what you pay for in this line of work.

[hhamzeh]

txpharoah,
I do not like to convert my (re-encode) the video either. No matter what kind of encoding you do on video, you always loose some sort of quality. I like the extracting method by VOBEdit the best, specially I use Ulead DVD Workshop which does not re-encode the file if you wish to. My only problem is to convert the audio by BeSweet. I try it for the first time and it looks very confusing to me (many options and variables). Is there any other simpler software of at least a guide for converting LPCM/AC3 to a format that TMPGEnc suport. Thanks for your help.

Trust_NO_1,
your method #3 (using a mini DV) is a good way too. Might you be intrested to know that there is a software that accept DVD (.vob) files as an input and it outputs DV signal directly to your digital Camcordr through Fire Wire port. It is originally designed for connecting the computer to TV through a mini DV for the video cards which does not suport TV out. Just have the DVD on your HD or even on your DVD drive if it is not protected, and connect your mini DV to your computer through fire wire, and you can have the movie on your camcorder screen (obviously you can recorde it as well). Good luck.

http://icqphone.ru/video2tv/

[bobbybobbertson]

Trust_No_1

I like your answer to this question. I tried using your steps, but had a problem. The VFAPIConvEN step does not output the audio as part of the video file. The option to Export audio is greyed and I can't select it.

Any idea why? DVDtoAVI is outputting the wav file. I played the wav file and the audio is there. Do I need to rename the file or something? How do I get VFAPIConvEN to see it?

thanks

[Marlow]

Thanks again for the info on the computer setup.

One last question though on the processor. I know P4 is the best but is celeron possible if it's fast? I only ask because I have a friend that says he can get me a great deal on a 2.5 gig celeron processor. Is this processor aceptable for AV editing even if it isn't optimal?

[Will Hay]

Not AMD?
Looks like the Intel Corp. global conditioning worked on you then.
Not XP?
I've used XP flawlessly for six months now and produce stunning quality dvd home movies.
What's good for you may not neceessarily be the best way for everyone else.
Marlow,
Go with what you can afford (as someone quite rightly pointed out) although one suggestion from personal experience; get a second (larger) drive for video capture, and format before each capture (if you intend to capture that is!).
Don't be sucked in to this AMD vs Intel rubbish, I've had both and there's nothing in the comparable processor's.
Don't feel you have to buy the 'top of the range' of every piece of hardware you buy. I picked up an ATI Radeon 64mb DDR ViVo (video in, video out) for £35.00 brand new on ebay and it's the best peice of hardware I've ever had.
Avoid motherboards with VIA chipsets, go with Intel (if you choose the P4 route) or SiS.
Good luck
Will

[dcsos]

To Re-Edit DVD footage easily with one program...
Pay $250 for the WOMBLE M2Pro Editor..
If you give it a VOB it will join or cut any segment within and resave without dogging your AC3audio..
Better still it joins only no recompression.

Alternative save formats it gives you
VCD, SVCD or MPE-1 and 2 in custom configs



also for another review:
I tried the MPEG-MARVEL for premiere import (to edit MPEG-2 streams)
and It works only on the Video Portion..That is even with this plug-in installed, Ac3 and PCM audio at 48k still give Premier trouble, while PCM-MPEG layer 1 or 2 edits fine

[ktnwin]

Editing DVD sounds too complicate !!!
Why don't you try neoDVD software, it does allow to edit DVD.
I have tried to edit MPEG-2, VOB, AVI (mainly for cutting) and it's OK.
There is no need to separate video/audio.

[Marlow]

dcsos,

Where do get the Womble M2pro editor? I can't seem to find it at any e-tailer.

[wingnut]

To echo previous comments, Womble MPEG2VCR is definitely a must have. go to www.womble.com to purchase.

Regards

Ed

[Nelson37]

Just a thought.

I use a similar DVD2AVI procedure on hi-bitrate MPEG-2 caps, edit with VDUB, frameserve the audio and video seperately and re-encode.

Now, you can break the AC-3 into 6 waves, and in VDUB you can save your edit points on the video and import the WAV files individually. Save each identically edited WAV and then re-create the AC-3 with SoftEncode or BeSweet. The audio offsets should be maintained, I have done this with a stereo file but not a true AC-3, should work though.

I would imagine Premiere or others could do similar function.

[bobbybobbertson]

did anybody try Trust_No_1's way of editing?

I really like it because it is easy, but VFAPIconv doesn't seem to see the audio file, so the AVI file that is created doesn't have any audio.

Is that the way it is supposed to be? (My question is explained more above)

thanks
bobby

[bobbybobbertson]

well... I took a guess and used virtualdub along with its direct stream copy to create another avi file that contained both the audio and video. I thought for sure I'd end up with an ungodly huge file as I figured the codec wouldn't translate to another file and it would output an uncompressed file, but it did just made file that contained the audio and still references the VOB files!!

awesome!!

[Marlow]

It looks like I'll be getting a Dell Dimension with: 2gig Celeron processor,
120 gig HD, 256mb RAM (to start), 48x cd-ROM, second bay DVD+R/RW.

Which system and what tools would be the best to use with the above set up?

[Will Hay]

It looks like I'll be getting a Dell Dimension with: 2gig Celeron processor,
120 gig HD, 256mb RAM (to start), 48x cd-ROM, second bay DVD+R/RW.

Which system and what tools would be the best to use with the above set up?

DVD+R?
Does the phrase 'betamax' mean anything to you?
Will

[bobbybobbertson]

For anyone using Trust_No_1's way of re-editing dvd's, I'm having a problem with premier wanting to re-render all the video. Thus, in order to export, I have to re-render the entire movie which creates an absolutely HUGE preview file and takes forever!!.

I have checked premier's "settings viewer" to compare the clip settings to the project settings. For Mode and compressor, the clip says "n/a" and the project settings are for "Microsoft DV AVI". I can't change the project settings to anything else so I guess that is why it wants to re-render everything.

[Trust_No_1]

bobbybobbertson,

This depends on what you are trying to achieve. You can export to MPEG2 without rendering. Obviously the type of edits have an impact here. If you are doing cuts and inserts, then you do not need to render for MPEG export. However, if you are adding transistions etc then yes you do need to render.

For what it's worth, last Saturday I re-edited The Phantom Menace using the same procedure. I applied several cuts and a couple of inserts. I did not re-render at all. Then I exported to MPEG2. This took approximately 4 hours for a 2 hour movie and the MPEG file was just over 6 GB. Obviously this is to big for a single DVD.

I then split the movie in two in Premiere, re-exported to MPEG. This took approximately 2 hours for each segment. Then I authored two DVD's each containing an hour of the movie with AC3 2.0 sound - I prefer quality over quantity of DVD discs. The quality of the DVD is excellent. I did an A/B comparison with the original and my 'edit' version looks very impressive on my 50" tv. Trust me, I'm anal when it comes to this stuff.

Maybe you should state what you're trying to do?

Hope that helps.

P.S. A final thought on rendering. If you are doing transitions etc, then you might be able to just render the affected clips in question without rendering everything. You can set 'preview to RAM' to 'on' in the render options. You can also render the 'work area' only. I haven't tried these but they might work.

[bobbybobbertson]

Trust_No_1

I have a bigger problem now. Have your tried editing in premier with two different AVI files that use the VFAPIcodec? In other words have you tried to maybe edit two separate movies together?

I have two different DVD's that I ripped and then converted with DVD2AVI and then applied the VFAPIcodec.

Everything works well in premier when I edit the first pseudo avi file. However, once I add the second pseudo avi file and try to edit, premier locks up or gets really slow and stops responding.

I'm guessing this is a bug of some sort in the VFAPIcodec.

Have you tried editing more than one VFAPI pseudo avi file in premier?