MPEG2 and Final Cut Pro HD 4.5

[steve_thatguy]

I'm trying to work with movies that have been ripped on a PC from DVD to SVCD. Now I'm trying to import those to Final Cut Pro, but the sound is missing. Reading the manual the only file formats it says it supports importing are .avi and .mov, or something like that. Is this true? Is there any way around this?

We need to keep the clips as high quality as possible, and from my understanding the .avi and .mov filetypes are much lower resolution than MPEG2.

Can anyone help me with this? If we have to re-rip the DVDs on the Mac, that's fine too, but how should we go about doing that so that we can get them straight into Final Cut Pro? Is there a way to do it to Macrovision-protected DVDs also?

Thank you very much for any help.

-Steve

[FCPguy]

You're going to have to convert those to DV (do a search for dvd to dv) I recommend re-ripping them for the conversion (DVD to DV so you don't keep converting the video files) Peace

[steve_thatguy]

I searched for DVD to DV, but haven't been able to find anything. In fact, the only thing I've seen that converts anything to DV is Quicktime Pro, but that doesn't say that it can read DVDs/VOB files. Have I just gone searching retarded? If so, could you help point me in the right direction?

Thank you so much.

[FCPguy]

Interesting, I swore I saw a tutorial for that somewhere, If I find it, I'll def post a link for you.

[steve_thatguy]

Actually I forgot until I was checking my bookmarks (I've been trying to figure this out for a while) that I did see another post talking about software other than Quicktime Pro that'll convert to DV, but it's pay-for and more importantly only converts .avi files, so as seems to be common I'd have to transcode twice. Oh well.

Having played a bit more with the .vob file I got from MacTheRipper, I've noticed that both Quicktime and Final Cut Pro will open it, but neither will play the audio. If I can get those, especially FCP, to read both the video and the audio then that would actually be even better for what I'm needing. Any suggestions on this, or should I try posting in the Editing forum?

[FCPguy]

Hopefully this will help (it's cheap at least !)

[FCPguy]

Ok, let's try this again, HERE you go :

http://www.dvdxdv.com/

I hope THAT helps peace

[steve_thatguy]

Actually that's what I just found. It won't let me rip one straight to the other for copy-protected DVDs, but it will open .vob files MacTheRipper gives me. I do believe we have a winner!

Thank you very much. I've seriously been trying to figure out how to do this for my work project for a few weeks now. You've been a great help.

-Steve

[FCPguy]

One tip through the grape vine-
You may want to do the conversion in chunks (I've heard doing an entire movie (over 1 hr ect.) at once can make for worse looking conversions (on some of the prosites) so I recommend taking it in chunks, then putting it back together in FCP. Glad it all worked out for you (and without dropping a bunch of LOOT!!) Peace