Working with Apple files On Windows

[Timster]

Sorry if this post is a bit long but I need some serious help here. I had a friend who shot a video of me playing piano for demo purposes while I was working on a cruise ship. I made sure she made me an actual DVD and that all the original unedited files would be put on another data DVD. She did a good job but I would like to re-edit the DVD myself. She did the editing on an apple and all the files that are on the Data DVD are files with no extensions. What kind of files are these and what extension should I put on them? I'm figuring they are quicktime files and I put an .avi on them and quicktime says they are DV files. Should I put a .dv extension on them?
Of course I'm using Windows XP. The programs I am familiar with are Windows Movie Maker which unfortunatley does not make DVD compliant DVDs, TMPEG and DVD shrink. What is the best and easiest method for me to edit these files and make a DVD compliant DVD. This is a one time project and I don't own a video camera so won't be using this stuff after this. I don't need menus but what I want to do is be able to cut songs and do fade to black and fade from black between songs to make about a 20 minute video of about 12 songs.
Can someone point me in the right direction? I've read the FAQs and the forums for the last few days but no answers.
Also, the video came out a bit grainy probably due to the fact of low lighting and she had to turn up the apperture, any way to smooth out the video?


Thanks,
Tim

[lordsmurf]

.AVI should work. Try it.
If not, do .QT or .MOV instead.
.DV does not exist.

You have to edit and encode the files before authoring and burning.

[Cornucopia]

If your friend used iMovie (likely), then what you should have are DV-compressed Quicktime MOV files without an extension. I'm 99% positive that they AREN'T DV-compressed AVI. I don't even think that iMovie allows you to save/export an AVI.

BTW, when naming QT movies, ".MOV" extension should be used (I recommend this even on the macs). ".QT" is accepted, but not recommended.
Also, when naming DV-AVI files, ".AVI" extension should be used. ".DV" and ".DIFF" (and a few others) have been used for DV-AVI and raw DV streams, but are discouraged for DV-AVI.

My suggestion:
Rename w/ ".mov" extension, open in QTPro (hopefully you've got it--it's good to have anyway). Export as DV-AVI ("APPLE DV-NTSC" should be one of the video codec options--it will losslessly "transcode"), using ".avi" extension. This will give you a Type2 file w/ standard (DVSD??) fourCC, so you can use that in most editing apps, including WMM.

Problem with WMM is: once ready to export edited file back to DV-AVI (YOU WANT TO DO THIS!), it will only export Type1, so that can make encoding to MPEG2 a little more problematic. If so, use a Type1-->Type2 converter. Otherwise, edit with a different (better?) editing app.

Encoding w/ TMPGEnc is quite good.

...

Alternately, you might consider editing the MPEG from the Authored DVD using Cuttermaran, etc. However, this may not give you the kind of control that you need, depending on program content, encoding, etc., so as usual, YMMV.

HTH,
Scott

[Timster]

Thanks for the info guys. I kind of wanted to go the free route. I have found one solution so far with the trial versions of Tmpeg plus and a trial of Nero Mix however I don't really care for Nero. I think WMM interface is an easy to use solution unfortunately it wont save any of my movies so it ain't much use. I keep on trying different things out with trial and error I suppose. I've successfully used TMPEG to encode to MPEG-2 and the video looks great however when I add it to WMM it doesn't see the video only the audio. WMM seems buggy.
Tim

[Cornucopia]

You've got it turned all round.

WMM accepts AVI's (various codecs as supported by your system) and WMV's, and MAYBE MPG1's as input, and outputs WMV's and DV-AVI's as output. No MPEG2 input, No MPEG1 or MPEG2 output.

You want to do this:

• DV files --> Editing App --> edited DV files --> Encoding app --> MPEG files --> Authoring app --> VOB files / DVD discImage / DVD disc
  
  Not:
  
  DV files --> Encoding app --> MPEG files --> Editing app --> more MPEG files, etc.

If you go the alternate route I suggested, you'll be doing this:

• VOB files --> Ripping/Demuxing app --> MPEG files --> MPEG editing app --> edited MPEG files --> Authoring app --> new, edited VOB files / DVD discImage / DVD disc

You fill in the choice of app (as long as it's compatible w/ input & output)

Scott