Capty MPEG Edit EX and Streamclip - Film Rate?

[pianoman719]

I'm looking for a good MPEG cutter/joiner and hope I don't have to look beyond my Mac. Those experienced with Capty MPEG Edit EX, can it handle NTSC film rate material with pulldown? I want to make a highlights .mpg from a DVD that I own. I'm having trouble getting MPEG Streamclip to Convert or Demux film rate material. Seems like it doesn't handle the pulldown properly. Any film rate .mpg I try and edit in Streamclip, when I go to Convert or Demux, the resulting .mpg or .m2v has a horrible stutter. Would it be the same with Capty MPEG Edit EX? I'm a serious hobbyist on a budget, and the app has no trial version, so I'm relying on users to give me the lowdown. Also, does it handle 16:9? (BTW, the price for Capty MPEG Edit EX may be wrong in the Video Tools section. Pixela seems to be selling it for around $50.)

Any help or workarounds would be appreciated. Thanks. -Pianoman

[terryj]

You say you own this DVD, but did you create it,
like with iDVD or DVDSP, or is this a commercial
store bought DVD? if so, you probably
need to rip it to the HD first using Mac The Ripper
to break any copyguards....the stutter could be caused
by copyguards...

[AntnyMD]

piano, is this a commercial dvd? if so, if i own it, i'll test it the software.

[pianoman719]

You say you own this DVD, but did you create it,
like with iDVD or DVDSP, or is this a commercial
store bought DVD? if so, you probably
need to rip it to the HD first using Mac The Ripper
to break any copyguards....the stutter could be caused
by copyguards...

Thanks, Terry and Antny. It's not a CSS issue. If you like, try this:

- Rip a VOB chapter from any DVD you own that you KNOW is film rate with 3:2 pulldown. (Can be 16:9 or 4:3. Can be any ripping tool.)

- Open the VOB in MPEG Streamclip (with Apple QuickTime MPEG2 Playback Component installed) and it will probably play just fine.

- But choose Convert To Mpeg. Unless it's something weird on my system, you'll probably find that the resulting video will have a bad stutter like Streamclip didn't do the pulldown and just processed it as ordinary 29.97 fps material. Same if you Demux. (This bug only affects film rate material. Same result with different versions of Streamclip from 1.3.1 to current 1.5.1.)

It's a catch-22, because if you edit the movie in Streamclip, you can use Save As and you won't get the stutter but the file will be filled with timecode breaks. If you use Convert to Mpeg (or Demux), Streamclip will fix the timecode breaks but (apparently) screw up the 3:2 pulldown. Anybody know a solution? I've tried every workaround I can think of. (I apologize if this is just something weird on my system.)

One approach is not to edit in Streamclip, but just set in/out points at GOPs and use Save As to create a folder of short clips. But I've never found a way to join the clips back together without either poor audio sync or timecode problems. (Each individual file plays great, but it may be that at the end of a file, there's a tad more video than audio. So when you join a bunch of these files, in a 20 min. highlights clip the audio is a couple of seconds ahead of the video by the end.)

Of course I know I could use Streamclip to Export to DV, edit in iMovie, and reencode to MPEG. But I want to keep it first generation. (Also, I only have iLife 4, so I would need to use some tedious workarounds to end up with a 16:9 MPEG.)

I could also take a folder of short MPEGs, move them to a PC, and try something like VideoReDo to fix the streams and join them. But I'd much rather do it all on a Mac. (I don't have Virtual PC.)

Still hoping somebody knows if Capty MPEG Edit EX is good with film rate and 16:9 material. Thanks again for all the tips, guys. -Pianoman

[AntnyMD]

One approach is not to edit in Streamclip, but just set in/out points at GOPs and use Save As to create a folder of short clips. But I've never found a way to join the clips back together without either poor audio sync or timecode problems. (Each individual file plays great, but it may be that at the end of a file, there's a tad more video than audio. So when you join a bunch of these files, in a 20 min. highlights clip the audio is a couple of seconds ahead of the video by the end.)

Now THIS is something I have noticed in MPEG Streamclip, the creation of audio sync on its edited clips when clipping a stream longer than, say, your average music video. Capty MPEG Edit EX doesnt have this issue.

The timecode breaks are inevitable since, but cutting the MPEG into chunks, you are breaking the time code. :-) In Streamclip after you've pasted in all your chunks, simply do an Apple-F to fix the breaks. You're gonna have sync issues though.

MPEG Streamclip still is a fantastic product, but Capty MPEG Edit EX is still worth a purchase.

[pianoman719]

Now THIS is something I have noticed in MPEG Streamclip, the creation of audio sync on its edited clips when clipping a stream longer than, say, your average music video. Capty MPEG Edit EX doesnt have this issue.

The timecode breaks are inevitable since, but cutting the MPEG into chunks, you are breaking the time code. In Streamclip after you've pasted in all your chunks, simply do an Apple-F to fix the breaks. You're gonna have sync issues though.

MPEG Streamclip still is a fantastic product, but Capty MPEG Edit EX is still worth a purchase.

Thanks Antny. I agree that Streamclip is a fantastic piece of freeware for all that it does so well. As far as opening the sequence of short clips in Streamclip and using Cmd-F to fix the timecode breaks, it's still a catch-22: The sequence will then play perfectly in Streamclip, but there's no way to save out the file without getting the stutter problem (on film rate material with pulldown). If I use Convert To Mpeg or Demux, I get the stutter. If I use Save As, I get one big file that still has all the timecode breaks, and so is unauthorable.

Timecode breaks are only inevitable in the sense that on the Mac side there doesn't seem to be a robust and flexible .mpg joiner that will write out a new file with proper sequential timecode. (Unless maybe MPEG Append, which only works on .m2v files and which I haven't tried yet. Reports anyone?)

I'm encouraged to hear that Capty MPEG Edit EX is worth the purchase, but will hold out and see if someone knows whether it handles film rate material and 16:9. Thanks again. -Pianoman