n00b: editing out commercials

[MikeMGMVE]

So here's what I plan to do. I've tivo'd a tv series that I want to save to dvd (as it hasn't officially been released, and doesn't seem likely.)

I have a canopus advc... 300? I think, or 150? Eitherway I capture to uncompressed AVI's.

I'd like to edit out the commercials, and then of course burn the full shows to dvd's.

I have some experience in virtualdub, but must be slightly special needs, because I've not figured out the easiest fastest way to cut out all commercials in one go, or do I need to do it several times (one section of commercials at a time.)

For an uncompressed AVI, what is the best method at editing them out?

thanks for any help! sorry for posting such an easy question, but I didn't see any guides that detailed it for virtualdub.

[steveryan]

Find the start of the commercial and hit the [mark in] key, go to the end of the commercial and hit the [mark out] key, hit the delete key on your keyboard. Repeat until you have removed all the commercials. Before you save the file make sure video is set to direct stream copy and audio is set to source audio. Btw, the mark in/out keys are the ones on the right of the buttons at the bottom of the Vdub screen.

[MikeMGMVE]

Thanks so much! seems so obvious now, but thats the kind of genius i am!!

[reboot]

You could also try comskip with mencoder or one of the other free ones. It will detect commercials, mark them for removal, then re-encode the video to mpg (or even elementary streams) for dvd with the commercials removed.
It can take a bit to get comskip to detect properly, but once it's tuned, the process becomes (almost) completely automated.

[MikeMGMVE]

I have another problem,

So i've started recording to my computer, it's into a type 2 uncompressed avi - and when i open it in virtualdub (and vdubmod) i get this error:

"Couldn't locate decompressor for format 'dvsd' (unknown). Vdub requires a video for windows (vfw) compatible codec to decompress video. DirectShow codecs such as those used by Windows Media Player, are not suitable. Only 'Direct stream copy'
is available for this video.

I can play the video back, and hear audio, but the video is blank. what codec do i need?

[qz3fwd]

why dont you extract the mpeg files from your tivo, then just use videoredo to slice and dice them for dvd authoring. no need to capture and re-encode?

[jagabo]

You probably captured as type 2 DV AVI files (that's the right thing to do). VirtualDub needs a VFW based DV decoder to show you the video as you edit. Try Panasonic DV Codec or Cedocida.

Once you've installed the DV decoder Open your DV AVI file with VirtualDub. Select Video -> Direct Stream Copy (so it doesn't recompress the frames). Cut out all your commericals. Finally Save as AVI.

Then you convert that to MPEG2 for DVD.