ripping video-footage on DVD for a tv-spot

[scarlac]

Hi

I'm making tv-spots and company-presentations. The guy with whom I went filming a new tv-spot gave me the video-footage on a DVD already compressed for the dvd-format. I'd like to rip this footage to AVI or to MPG without loosing quality. Anyone knows a good free ripping tool to AVI or MPG

Thanx
Scarlac

[teegee420]

I think this question can best be answered once it is known what you plan to do with the footage. Are you going to edit? If so, which program? Will you be putting it back on DVD?

If the original source was MiniDV or Digital 8 is there any chance you can get ahold of that instead? DV AVI is a much better source format than mpeg-2.

[scarlac]

That's the problem, the guy erased the tape. Normally I use the original DV-file. I don't know why he gave me that on a DVD, he normally always gives to me the DV-file on a DVD and not compressed into a DVD-standard.

What I plan to do with it. Editing in Premiere and/or After Effects and then exporting to a betacam-digital (for that TV-channel) and DVD (for own use).

Alec

[teegee420]

Here's what you can do:

1. Rip the DVD to your hard drive. A simple copy and paste of the VIDEO_TS folder should do since it's not encrypted. Or use DVD Decrypter so that only the movie and no menus are ripped.

2. Get DVD2AVI and open your first VOB. The rest should open sequentially. Go to the file menu and select "save project". This will create a d2v file as well as create an audio stream in whatever audio format is on the DVD.

3. Download VFAPI Reader and run the .bat file to install the codec. Afterwards, run "VFAPIConvEN.exe" and click "add job". Browse for your d2v project file and select it. Click "convert". This will create an avi file that will frameserve the mpeg-2 to Premiere for you.

When you export your finished project from Premiere, don't be surprised if you notice a little qulity loss in the video. That's what happens when you have an already compressed file as your source.