MPEG2 to iMovie to iDVD

[doctormelodious]

Greetings,

I tried to do a search before posting this, but the search engine on this board is returning an error message. I just downloaded and registered ffmpegX. It's great, but even after having read all the How-To's, I'm a bit overwhelmed by all the choices. So, I'm hoping for some advice.

I want to pull some MPEG-2 files into iMovie for editing. After shelling out $20 to Apple for its MPEG-2 Playback Component, I discovered that it didn't like the particular flavor of MPEG-2 with which these files were encoded, and failed to read them. Then I found a link to ffmpegX.

What is the best way to run these MPEG-2 files through ffmpegX and end up with files that are as close as possible to the size, bitrate and quality of the originals -- but that iMovie will import?

One final note: once I'm through editing in iMovie, I intend to burn the resulting movie to DVD with iDVD.

Thanks much!
DM

[doctormelodious]

P.S. Here are the specs on one of the MPEG-2 files:

352x480, 2600 kbps, 29.97 fps

[meldavid]

You want to convert the mpeg2 file into a DV file.


However if you are not doing heavy editing, you can use a progam like MPEG Streamclip to make several mpeg2 files, which you can then rearrange in a DVD authoring program. This saves having to re-encode the video and losing quality due to compression artefacts.

[doctormelodious]

Hi Mel,

I thought about DV, but for the 2-hour movie the resulting file will be approx 28.5 GB (based on the size of a smaller MPEG-2 I saved as DV). That seems like overkill for a 2.37 GB source file. There must be a way I can stay close to the original size and end up with something comparable (again, that iMovie can actually read). Really what I want to do is tell it "fix this MPEG-2 so that QT can play it."

Re editing, I would use Streamclip, but for MPEG-2 files it relies on the Apple MPEG-2 Playback Component, which won't work with these files.

Thanks much for the suggestions! Any other thoughts most welcome.

Peace-Out,
DM

[dminieri]

I have the same problem and would love someone to post a solution too!
Cheers,
D.

[terryj]

Hi Mel,

I thought about DV, but for the 2-hour movie the resulting file will be approx 28.5 GB (based on the size of a smaller MPEG-2 I saved as DV). That seems like overkill for a 2.37 GB source file. There must be a way I can stay close to the original size and end up with something comparable (again, that iMovie can actually read). Really what I want to do is tell it "fix this MPEG-2 so that QT can play it."

Hmm, so basically it reads like you want your cake and eat it too?
:P
Your transcoding a COMPRESSED finalized file back to its original state.
It is going to be BIG! That is the nature of the video.

MPeg-2 is a compressed finalized file, the file you deliver to your clients
as finished. DV Stream is what gets ingested into the computer RAW
so it can be edited.

If you are going to use iMovie, that is your only choice.
Everything going into iMovie becomes DV Stream, whether
AVI, MOV, or PICT file, it all becomes DV Stream.
Compressed finalized formats have to be transcoded back
into RAW formats to be used in iMovie.

Re editing, I would use Streamclip, but for MPEG-2 files it relies on the Apple MPEG-2 Playback Component, which won't work with these files.

Thanks much for the suggestions! Any other thoughts most welcome.

Peace-Out,
DM

if all you need is a simple edit, MpegStreamclip is the way to go.
Why pray tell, won't the Apple Mpeg-2 component work with it?
Do you have it purchased (legally)?
If so, what happens when Quicktime tries to open and play the file?
What does VLC say about the file's codecs and duration?

I haven't found a flavor of mpeg-2 that QT, with the Mpeg-2 component, couldn't handle...
Are we sure were dealing with Mpeg-2 and not Mpeg-4?

post back.

[doctormelodious]

Everything going into iMovie becomes DV Stream, whether
AVI, MOV, or PICT file, it all becomes DV Stream.

D'oh! Good point. I wasn't grasping that. (Odd, since I've done several projects in Final Cut Pro...)

Why pray tell, won't the Apple Mpeg-2 component work with it?
Do you have it purchased (legally)?

As I mentioned, I paid Apple $20 for it. Thanks for asking. :\

I haven't found a flavor of mpeg-2 that QT, with the Mpeg-2 component, couldn't handle...

Turns out that these files are known not to work with Apple's MPEG2 Component (http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2006-12/tivotogo-on-your-mac/). I only realized this after the fact.

I was, however, happy to discover that the wonderful ffmpegX does read them (as does VLC). I was able to use ffmpegX to convert them to MP4, which I could then pull into StreamClip for very basic editing. No need for iMovie.

Thanks for the replies, and Joyous Festivus to All!!
DM

[glynnkjk]

I just finished a long project......and what I found out, the HARD way, was encoding files from anything that was of a small aspect to a larger one would result in choppy video. Going from 352x480 to Mpeg-4 may be smaller but the codec randomly picks up frames. The best results are to encode to DV. Set your iMovie for DV. It will load your file faster that way too. iDVD takes the same amount of time to encode the DVD. The only limit is not the GB's but time. If it goes over 2 hours set your project info to Dual-layer and save to your HD. Then you can use ffmpegx or Popcorn to compress it to a regular DVD.

Hope this helps

[glynnkjk]

One other little note I just remembered, if the DV format is not set to ???x480 then the file may take up to an hour to load into iMovie. I used 680x480 and I think it was 720x480 it could have been 740??? But set your video to DV 680x480. NTSC or PAL, iMovie will pick that up too. If you import a PAL and iMovie is set for NTSC it will take longer to load.

Cheers