Ripping a DVD to Quicktime for Avid Editing...

[skettalee]

Ok, I hope this is the right spot. Im so confused on this and I really need the full project done by Nov 22. My friend had his wedding and to save him some money, I told him to get his raw footage from the camera man to me and I will do all the editing in my Avid Xpress Pro system. Well he sent me a DVD and all I need to do is get that footage into a huge uncompressed Quicktime file so i can import it into my Avid (Video Editing Software) and start editing it and i got the rest .. Does anyone know what I can do? I got the dvd ripped to the hard drive already but I have no clue what the best way for turning the vob's and whatnot into a uncompressed Quicktime. PLEASE HELP ME YOU GUYS, I KNOW SOMEONE KNOWS. Thanks alot!

To see some more of my editing go here :

http://www.damienbenoit.com/portfolio.html

[skettalee]

A little extra knowledge for you guys, I figured I could open the VOB with Virtual Dubb (which i could) and compress it to avi or something and maybe work from there. But when I try to do that, it comes up with an error saying "No audio decompressor could be found to decompress the source audio format". Please help ASAP!!! I need this done soon if anyone knows this!

[Gazorgan]

You said VOB, which implies it's an Authored Video DVD, and not a Data DVD with a video file on it.

There are several ways to do this, none of them involve the MOV format. Does anyone still use that? I've never seen a decent trailer in MOV, it's always overcompressed crap.

Anyway, it's pretty straight forward. What file formats can you import? You can use DVDDecryptor and stream mode, this will give you the M2V(s) and the audio track(s) (which I assume is PCM). If you can't import that, then you can use DVD2AVI and the VFAPI plugin. This will give you a WAV for sound and a Pseudo AVI file you can import.

You can also use DVD2AVI and dump out a WAV and an AVI in about any codec (mjpeg is good, or Huffyuv).

[skettalee]

Very sorry, but in my years of video editing and working with formats. The most reliable for speed and efficency has been Quicktime mov files. Sorry to tell you man, but its about the industry standard for video editing with file formats, thats why avid hardly accepts anything else. It will barely accept other formats so im willing to go avi if i have to. Im gonna try that. I appreciate your help. anyone else know anything better?

[dcsos]

SKETALEE..both you and GARZORGAN are right

You cannot use the .MOV format with compression..
YOU NEED NO COMPRESSION

Please select the QUICK TIME FORMAT
but in the compressor setting what you must do is choose one of the following option, depending on what program you are using

the selection will say
NONE...or UNCOMPRESSED or NO RECOMPRESSION

this way you aren't relly using QUICK TIOME except as a file wrapper for an uncpmpressed or as some will say refrence movie
(the reference movie name is used on systems that don't support files above 4 gig in a single go,,this way quick time makes a series of linked files less than this maximumum that are invisibly linked subfiles)

[dcsos]

and I see you don't know how to do this!

Please select a program that UNDER STANDS AC3 audio this is why your programs cannot see the audio you need to convert..
I'll reccomend two paths

PATH ONE
Using TMPGenc to DE-MUX the VOB in question to 2 files then submit the AC3 portion to a converter program like MPEG2VCR by WOMBLE
or BeSweet (never used this one) or HeadAc3 (also freeware)

PATH TWO you need an AC3 aware NLE like VEGAS 4.0 for this one..
AVID is way behind the times as it will not import AC3 so convert in VEGAS 4.0 or higher after DEMUXING

[dcsos]

I looked at my two posts and didn't like either

I'll give you my workflow, as I do this daily

I get the DVD..I use DECRYPTOR or SMARTRIPPER to get all the files on the harddrive

then, I use WOMBLE's Mpeg2Vcr software to load any VOB I need and I convert the AUDIO to MPEG AUDIO from AC3 in this program..
Now I save the converted
muxed VOB as a MPG with MPEG-layer 2 audio

This File with the identical untouched MPEG-2 Video and coverted MPEG layer 2 audio will import into any of 3 NON LINEAR EDITORS for conversion into an uncompressed quicktime for AVID

I use Premiere 6.0, 6.5 or Vegas 4.0 or 3.0 or Screenblast (sony's VEGAS product) or Ulead Video Studio 7 or higher

ALL of these NLES can output an uncompressed QUICKTIME for AVID IMPORT

The file will be bigger than the DVD 's vob (DUH!)

[Cornucopia]

You didn't say which platform you were using, but for this I'm going to assume PC (otherwise, you'd have posted in the Mac forum right?).

IIRC, Xpress Pro natively supports uncompressed, 2:1, 3:1, 15:1, and possibly DV (don't know if you've got the new Mojo, what version, etc.). These are OMF-wrapped files using either No compression, AVID meridien compression, possibly (though not likely) AVID ABVB compression, or DV compression. These ARE NOT standard Quicktime files, although they rely on quicktime and use quicktime codecs, and occasionally QT can open and play these files.

What I would do (and have done successfully before), is use one of the apps on the left, like VirtualDub (esp. VDubMod w/MPEG2 an AC3 support), to open the VOBs and save the video to uncompressed AVI. Do similar thing with audio (decode AC3? and save to LPCM WAV).

Then download both the AVI version and QT version of PC platform AVID codecs. They do exist and will work with each other, even if they don't totally match in version numbers. Install these as directed (I could help here).

Then, using QTPro (yes you need that!), save/export the uncompressed AVI/WAV to a QT file with the AVID video codec setting of choice (see above)--or the DV codec if using that--and retaining uncompressed audio.

Why do it this way? Well, if you were to leave it as uncompressed. AVID should be able to see it, but since it wasn't already in the "OMF"-supported format, it would have to convert, and if you wanted a compressed format to work with, it would also have to do the compression to be able to see the file. AVID's internal conversion engine is SLOOOWWW! Even compared to QT. So what you're doing is pre-compressing the file to an AVID-approved QT file, which will import a whole lot faster. What it's really doing is copying the data and changing the wrapper. This adds the required meta-data for its Bin database, etc.

There are other, faster ways, such as using Boabab's DV converter or the Advanced DV File converter, but both of these cost a little bit over and above the cost of QTPro, which is still required. At least the codecs and VDub, etc are free.

Let us know how it goes. It is possible.

HTH,
Scott

[BJ_M]

if you have avid xpress on the same machine , vegas will convert the vob directly into AVID ABVB format for you very quickly (or ALL other avid supported import types (including AVID QT formats)) ..

though while your at it -- you might as well edit it in vegas anyway ... though you can do so in xpress also ...


skettalee is right - QT (various codecs) are still the defacto standard for high end NLE (though DVpro and DV50 are right in there now) -- this isnt the same type QT though as used for the QT trailers and such .. though even QT V3 and QTmpeg4 , compressed w/ squeeze (or vegas with squeeze installed) are extremly good quality..

[The village idiot]

OK, if you have Vegas, why would you want to convert it so that you could edit with Avid, why wouldn't you just use Vegas to do the editing?

And if it is running on a PC, why won't Avid use any installed AVI type codec like all the other editors?

I might chose a slightly different path, but won't suggest it here because it will only work to confuse you more, and require different software than is mentioned. The above works just fine.

[BJ_M]

Avid can not use any installed AVI type codec .. in fact , it's import is extremly limited and even for a supported file type (of which there are few) , it goes through a lenthy file reading thing...

its exported types are also few are far .....

We havn't mentioned the real lack of audio support for surround sound (you are supposed to use protools for this)

but what do you expect for $4000 (includes mojo) ..

but its AVID .... :P

[The village idiot]

Oh, yes... I forgot


Avid good.... Avid good.... Avid good....

I guess if you say it enough times, you might start believing, seems pretty damn limited to me, especially for the money.

[skettalee]

thanx so much everyone for you help.. i got it to work perfect.. and this is what i done...

i converted the audio in the vob with DVD2AVI and converted the video with VirtualDub. and then imported both into avid and added them together, worked perfect. Thanx for your help though... i appreciate everyones comments, maybe ill post my finished video for you guys to see later how about that?

[BJ_M]

here is a good review just posted on-line on doing just what you needed ..

funny enough they also ended up just using vegas mostly plus avid also


http://entertainmentdesignmag.com/ar/show_business_dame_down/index.htm