combining dvd & mini dv problems INTO 1 DVD

[kay_jay]

My friend made us a DVD (size is 400 MB)of my daughter's birthday video, which he shot with his camcorder. I too used my mini DV camcorder and took video of the same event (which I tranfered using the firewire cable from my camcorder) after he left. Now I want to combine both these videos to make one DVD. I donno how to do? I have Pinnacle studio, roxio, Nero softwares but I don't know how to combine these 2 videos and make into one dvd?


Pls advise.
Thanks in advance.

[Baldrick]

Use vob2mpg on the dvd and you will get one mpg file. Import the mpg file and the dv-avi in pinnacle studio or nerovision and make a new dvd.

[redwudz]

First they need to be in the same format, which would be MPEG-2. I assume you have his files on a DVD then? You could convert that back to MPEG-2 with VOB2MPG to be able to edit and reauthor it. The next part depends on how much editing you want to do. If the DVD part of the video is fine like it is, then you just need to edit yours and encode to MPEG-2.

If you want to mix the videos together into a single video, then you need a MPEG editor. Once you are done with that, author and burn. If you don't need to edit them together, then you just need to author both to a DVD. Most any authoring program will let you add the two videos in and make up menus, etc. Pinnacle Studio may work for all that, or there are lots of MPEG editors, encoders and authoring programs available, both freeware and payware.

I wouldn't use Nero for much more than burning if you want quality and control. If you just need an authoring program, look into TMPGEnc DVD Author. It has a trial version and is easy to use.

[kay_jay]

Use vob2mpg on the dvd and you will get one mpg file. Import the mpg file and the dv-avi in pinnacle studio or nerovision and make a new dvd.

Thanks for the reply. I used the VOB2MPG, it works fine. But audio is completely lost. Any idea why audio got lost? pls give me the remedies.
Thanks.

[guns1inger]

Most cameras compress audio to 2 (or perhaps 5.1) channel ac3. If you don't have an ac3 decoder on your PC, you wont here. You could try ac3filter or ac3 acm decompresser to see if that helps. You can also open the mpeg file with the latest g-spot to see if there is in fact any audio in it.

[kay_jay]

Most cameras compress audio to 2 (or perhaps 5.1) channel ac3. If you don't have an ac3 decoder on your PC, you wont here. You could try ac3filter or ac3 acm decompresser to see if that helps. You can also open the mpeg file with the latest g-spot to see if there is in fact any audio in it.

no changes. I tried to install ac3 & gspot, i am still not getting the audio.
At the least can I add audio track to the video file?

[guns1inger]

g-spot won't make any difference to you being able to hear it, but it will tell you if you have any. What does g-spot say ? If you can't understand g-spot's output, post a screenshot.

[grannyGeek]

Hi kay_jay
Are you using Pinnacle Studio to load and edit your files?

just a quick note ---
Studio does not recognise any AC3 codecs except its own.

I'm not sure if AC3/Dolby plugin is included in Studio PLUS, but it is not included in Standard or Light versions. I think if you have not purchased the plugin from Avid/Pinnacle, you won't be able to work with AC3 audio in that program. . . I don't know the current price, but the help file has instructions how to purchase and activate "extra" features like the AC3/Dolby plugin.

If you are using version 9.4 or newer, you should be able to import files directly from your (unencrypted) dvd disk (but I remember seeing a number of problems about that on the Studio support forum about a year ago, maybe it's been fixed)

< I'm a recovering Studio user, converted to using VirtualDub, and happier for it >