I thought it would be so simple... Edit DVD and put on youtube

[derek12b]

I hope someone can help me because I'm going to pull my hair out over this simple task. I bought a Canon DC 100 camcorder so I could make home movies and put vids up on youtube. I made a movie on my DC 100 and finalized the disk. I can put the disk in my DVD drive and I can play it with VLC player. THere is no problem with this. I would like to take my .vob, edit it and post it. I have , by default, Windows Movie Maker and I have Adobe Element Premier 1.0. I can take my VOB and copy it to my desktop and rename it to mpg but when I drag and drop it into Element its only 4 seconds long and no sound. So I downloaded Virtualdub to mpeg2 and try to convert to mpeg2 but the file is HUGE. I stop it after it get to 25 GIG...wow. All I want to do is take my video I made, edit it (with sound) and post it on youtube. Could someone please help me. I will be indebt to you forever.

[Baldrick]

DVD was never meant as a video editing format so that is why it's tricky to edit with most "older" editors.

But you can try export as dv-avi in virtualdub instead of uncompressed, under video->compression(install the Panasonic DV Codec if you have no dv-codec). Or use a dvd mpeg2 editor like mpeg video wizard.

AND PLEASE PLEASE use a better subject. I changed it this time.

[noemi7]

I will be indebt to you forever.

sounds interesting :P

You should start with VOB2MPG, then for YouTube conversion try ffmpeg. There are a few programs which offer gui for it, and templates for the conversion. I use following command line parameters which you can save as a batch file:

ffmpeg -i your_file.mpg -ar 22050 -ab 96k -ac 1 -f flv -s 320×240 -qscale 9 youtube_video.flv

-qscale: usable values for YouTube are between 6 and 9, lower is better but produces larger file.
-s: you may increase resolution of your video up to 640x480 max. allowed

Hope it helps.

[filmboss80]

Baldrick's suggestion is best when you want to edit with Premiere Elements, because DV-AVI is the best format for that -- and most other -- editors.

If, by chance, you are only making simple, cuts-only edits, you might try chopping up your VOB with MPG2Cut2 (freeware). Otherwise, stick with the VirtualDub > Premiere Elements option.

To convert your final edited video to a YouTube-friendly flv format, a free and easy tool is WinFF.

[derek12b]

I so appreciate all your advice and you taking the time to give me a 101 on the subject. Dont get me wrong I am more confused than ever but I will try to figure it out.