straight editing of VOB files & quality

[hakeemshabazz]

I'm new to all of this DVD/editing/authoring stuff, so excuse me if I sound foolish. What I am trying to do right now is cut out my favorite scenes from my favorite movies.

I recently discovered DVD shrink which lets me pick a start & end point, and then outputs the cut VOB files. Just what I needed. And it's so easy, I just want to make sure it's still DVD quality...seems to be too good to be true! I pick zero compression, so it should be, but I just wanna make sure.

While I have your attention, could someone also tell me if there is another program besides DVD shrink that allows you to edit scense frame by frame? I used TMPGEnc DVD author and it's by seconds (i believe)...definitely not frame by frame.

[kpkilburn]

Maybe I'm discussing semantics here, but the nature of MPEG video itself won't actually allow you to edit "frame by frame". You can cut only on the "I-Frames". I-Frames are full frames, much like a complete JPEG picture. Without boring you with a bunch of theory, the other frames (P and B) are not complete and thus you cannot edit on them in most programs.

I say "most" programs because there may be some that allow it. I just haven't seen them.

In most cases though, you won't need to edit exactly on a particular frame since the I-frames are fairly close together on the DVD standard. Only if you were editing a movie you filmed would you need the flexibility to edit on exact frames.

As long as you don't transcode (recompress) video, it should still be DVD quality. The only reason it would not be is if the program you're using re-encodes it (without being obvious) somehow. Otherwise, it's digital so you can transfer it as much as you like without degrading the quality. (Unlike copying a VHS tape over and over, which will lose quality since it's analog).

Perhaps you could try ReJig. It looks similar to DVDShrink, but I haven't personally used it though.