Total Newb Here :) Do I Stand A Chance At This ?

[4mula]

Hi, First want to say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you. And thank dumwaldo for the "How do I get my questions answered" Sticky post. I did exactly like everyone said, was a good boy and read through a ton of searches for my particular dilemma. But now I am more confused than at the start.

Simply put, you guys really know some major stuff here. I believe I am capable of this task i'm going to ask of you though.

My system consist of these Specs, Win XP SP1, Athalon XP2800, Asus A7N8X nForce 2, 120 GD WD, 1024 mb Corsair XMS, Readon 9700 Pro, 16X Toshiba DVD (48x CDROM), Plextor Plexwriter 52x CDRW, Firewire in sound card, Creative soundblaster Audigy 2.
Falcon Northwest Computer

I've yet to add the DVD Burner, though that's not of importance yet.

I'm an Administrator, Moderator, Writer, and Photographer on a similar phpbb board www.goDragRacing.com located in the US. I see some members here are from the other side of the pond.

We cover Drag Racing Events in the Northeast and had the oppourtunity to finish off the year with a Cannon Gl1. This is where the problem is. The site owner and I had rented this particular camera and returned it with 60 minutes of tape that we had burned to a DVD thinking that it would be more than easy to make downloadable WMV.'s. But Nope, not that easy. He's been having some sound sync problems with the capture he did from the tape using Adobe Premiere, but I do have the DVD and am on a mission to figure out how this can be done easily. And I stress that word Easily

I've tried SmartRipper, and have had nothing but errors. Flask gives me the same problems, either no sound, or cannot continue. I have 4 chapters in VOB. files that I would be incredibly grateful if some one could point me in the right direction on converting these to AVI.'s so they can be then edited to WMV.'s that need copyrights and effects added. Sound and very good quality is of major importance, along with small file sizes. If I am to understand this right it would be best to go to VOB...AVI...then WMV. The only program I have at my disposal is Windows Movie Maker (OK Don't Laugh). Most any Store programs are at my disposal.

I have set my preferences to recieve an email notice of replies, as I will be gone for the Christmas Holiday, But won't be able to get my mail till Sunday, and look forward to some constructive criticism, or some great answers from all of you guys here. I doubt that I will find this information anywhere but at dvdrhelp.com

Sincerely Mark
noricehere@goDragRacing.com

[psychoace]

I would gues since you made the dvd yourself or some small company did you wouldn't need to use smartripper or anything to copy the vobs over to your hard drive. Just copy paste and you should be fine. If not then try dvd decrypter which is the newist version of smartripper. Also are you using microsofts own wmv encoder? They supplied a easy to use program that will do a lot of the process for you without worring about setting up tons of settings. You can get it here http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/encoder/default.aspx.

[jimmalenko]

You've pretty much got it worked out. There are a couple of ways you can go about it and many freeware or payware programs you can use. My opinion is simply my experience with freeware. One of the problems you may encounter is that quality is directly proportional to file size. You may have to be prepared to find an even ground between the two.

My method:
Use VirtualDub MPEG-2 to open the DVD. Tweak to your desired settings and Save as AVI. I would compress using DivX 3000kbps for video and Lame MP3 320kbps for audio. Open Movie Maker and save to WMV using either high quality video for broadband(small) or high quality video for broadband(large) as your quality setting. This will make a variable bit rate WMV retaining as much quality as possible with minimal file size.

[kano]

shouldn't your files on a dvd be mpg-2 files? Also I don't quite under stand why you want to convert to wmv so bad. If its so you can upload your video to your website, you would want to convert to mpg-4. That is the best format for streaming video. I'm a lazy reader, but even I picked that up by reading around on this site. Your not going to be able to do shit with windows movie maker. If you had say After Effects, you could create a new comp, import your compressed video, and then export your project to movie, Once there you could set your compression format to microsoft DV, and wa-la you have an avi file. You should be able to figure out the rest on your own, you sound like a smart guy.

[4mula]

shouldn't your files on a dvd be mpg-2 files? Also I don't quite under stand why you want to convert to wmv so bad. If its so you can upload your video to your website, you would want to convert to mpg-4. That is the best format for streaming video. I'm a lazy reader, but even I picked that up by reading around on this site. Your not going to be able to do shit with windows movie maker. If you had say After Effects, you could create a new comp, import your compressed video, and then export your project to movie, Once there you could set your compression format to microsoft DV, and wa-la you have an avi file. You should be able to figure out the rest on your own, you sound like a smart guy.

I was led to believe that WMV's were the best for streaming, file size and end user friendly, We had the camera store burn the files to DVD, what was on the disk were VOB files. I understand that movie maker isn't the best choice, but I can get anything I need, After effects is one that is available to me. And I understood also that going directly to WMV would decrease the quality in every aspect.

I would gues since you made the dvd yourself or some small company did you wouldn't need to use smartripper or anything to copy the vobs over to your hard drive. Just copy paste and you should be fine. If not then try dvd decrypter which is the newist version of smartripper. Also are you using microsofts own wmv encoder? They supplied a easy to use program that will do a lot of the process for you without worring about setting up tons of settings. You can get it here http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/encoder/default.aspx.

I just viewed the encoder, and yes the files were already in VOB's, i waas using the Smart riper to try to get the VOB's into an avi, or some type of web based format, Just the 9 series download?

You've pretty much got it worked out. There are a couple of ways you can go about it and many freeware or payware programs you can use. My opinion is simply my experience with freeware. One of the problems you may encounter is that quality is directly proportional to file size. You may have to be prepared to find an even ground between the two.

My method:
Use VirtualDub MPEG-2 to open the DVD. Tweak to your desired settings and Save as AVI. I would compress using DivX 3000kbps for video and Lame MP3 320kbps for audio. Open Movie Maker and save to WMV using either high quality video for broadband(small) or high quality video for broadband(large) as your quality setting. This will make a variable bit rate WMV retaining as much quality as possible with minimal file size.

Ok now I'm starting to get what I need. So far I have three different ways to address this in a fairly simple manner. I knew help could be found here and thank you all so far !!

[kano]

get doctor divx. You will be able to convert to mpg-4 with this program. Of course your going to lose some quality but theres nothing you can do about that. mpg-4 is the best quality you can get, besides mpeg-2 when it comes to compression anyway.

[psychoace]

wmv=mpeg 4 just a different varient like divx/xvid all are under the mpeg 4 standard just they are tweaked.