Non-newbie cant convert some dang clips!

[forcelite]

My problem has gotten rediculous.

I have searched these forums, searched version tracker, and still no hope.

I did find divxray 3, which would do exactly what I need, but it crashes every time I try to convert my vob to mpg4.

Here is what I want to do.

I have a wedding DvD that I want to add chapters to.
I ripped the vob to my HD no problem. I also managed to demux the vob to ac3 and m2v.
Also I have mpv and pcm's of the same movie.

Can someone PLEASE help me to get this movie into final cut pro 4 or imovie. I want to eventually burn the movie with idvd.

Typically I am very good with computers, but this has been a huge problem. I have tried ffmpeg, shiva, divxray 2.6 and 3.

I would think that final cut would pull it in for how much it costs.

Keep in mind that I want to retain the best quality of video, size is no issue.

Thanks alot
Force

[pixeljammedia]

Worth a try is Serbian's ExportToDV which comes with his MPEG2 Works program. It creates an editable DV stream from your elementary streams. Other possibilities are Cinematize and DVDxDV. And Finally, for a free solution, try Diva.

[forcelite]

Thanks for your input.

I am running handbrake on the files right now.

I will defiantly try what you said.

One thing I thought of. The audio is an "unknown stream"

I am sure it just was never named, but I think that is what is giving alot of these programs some trouble.

It plays on a DvD standalone player, so it has to be something normal

Thanks again
Force

[pixeljammedia]

I thought you had a PCM audio track. If you have the video converted, open the PCM audio track in QT and copy it. Open your video track and do an Add. Save it as a self-contained movie and you are set. If you wanted it inside iMovie or FCP, I would have converted to DV Stream rather than to Mpeg4. This is why I never mentioned the many Divx transcoders as it is an intermediate step that can reduce quality. VOB to DV works in FCP, VOB to DivX to DV is unnecessary.

[terryj]

What about Quicktime Pro?
Quicktime Pro will open the audio stream,
and should open your (AC3) audio.
Convert the audio to AIFF 48khz
using the Quicktime Export feature.


I would:
Add scaled joined the m2v video to the ac3 audio.
Convert this file to a Digital Stream
using Quicktime--> Export to DV Stream.
Make sure audio stays locked.

Bring the DV stream into FCP.

pretty easy, no fuss.

[forcelite]

Man you guys are great help, thanks

Ok so I need to open the pcm audio in quicktime, then open the video (which file would be best?), then save them as a .mov?

I am guessing this will combine the 2 files that imovie or FCP can read and from there I can chop them up.

I defiatly dont want to lose any video quality.

I do have quicktime pro with a slew of plugins. If I remember correctly I get errors when I try to open any of the files in quicktime. I will try tonight to make sure, but is there any special import process that needs to be done, also what files does quicktime not open, and what files does it open (of the ones listed above)

Thanks again guys,

Force

[pixeljammedia]

If you have the MPEG-2 playback component (you have to buy it for ~$20 from Apple) for Quicktime, you can open the MPEG-2 and select File>Export and select Movie to DV stream in Quicktime Pro. If you do not have that ability in Quicktime Pro, use Diva or Export to DV, or Cinematize to turn the video into a DV stream. All of these methods will produce a video only .mov or .dv file which you can paste the audio into. Then bring those into iMovie or FCP.

[thoughton]

BTW, If you use Cinematize you'll need the MPEG2 decoder. And Cinematize doesnt export to DV either, it tells you to use QT Pro for that. Cheeky!

Also Cinematize output (QT mpeg2 files) are great quality (no blocks, smooth motion, etc), but there is an odd dithered effect to them that the original vobs dont have. It's as if the video is using too few colours. It still looks great on a TV, but you can defintely notice a difference (just not a very big one).

Also you should probably check out DVDxDV.

HTH

[pixeljammedia]

One other thing about Diva is that it has trouble with 3:2 pulldown, so if your source MPEG is at 24fps, the output DV may be out of synch.

[AntnyMD]

My problem has gotten rediculous.

I have searched these forums, searched version tracker, and still no hope.

I did find divxray 3, which would do exactly what I need, but it crashes every time I try to convert my vob to mpg4.

Here is what I want to do.

I have a wedding DvD that I want to add chapters to.
I ripped the vob to my HD no problem. I also managed to demux the vob to ac3 and m2v.
Also I have mpv and pcm's of the same movie.

Can someone PLEASE help me to get this movie into final cut pro 4 or imovie. I want to eventually burn the movie with idvd.

Typically I am very good with computers, but this has been a huge problem. I have tried ffmpeg, shiva, divxray 2.6 and 3.

I would think that final cut would pull it in for how much it costs.

Keep in mind that I want to retain the best quality of video, size is no issue.

Thanks alot
Force

Sorry, too lazy to edit your post to focus my reply.

You neednt use FCP or iMovie to simply add chapters to your content. Sizzle, CaptyDVD and DVD Studio Pro will all let you reauthor your ripped content and add chapters. No re-encoding needed: no conversion to DV, no recompression to MPEG, nothing...

[born bad]

I'm with AntnyMD -- if all you want to do is insert chapter markers into an existing DVD, I'd suggest using something other than iDVD to author the disc, as reencoding from MPEG2 to DV (then back again) will eat up time and especially video quality.

If you're doing more -- like rearranging scenes -- disregard my input. Reencoding is just about unavoidable if you want to make precise cuts.

If it's one single, long movie, a very simple method with ZERO quality loss would be: View the DVD with DVD Player and copy down the desired chapter stop times. Feed the m2v and ac3 into Sizzle .1 and define the tracks using the custom chapter stop feature on the Other tab. Save as DVD image and burn with Toast.

Regarding the audio file problem, you could try demuxing the VOB again using a different app (bbDemux, ffmpegX, MoreMissingTools, Extractor...) -- sometimes one app will leave some non-audio/video "junk" in the files, while another will isolate it into an extra discardable ISO track separate from the audio and video streams.

You could also try reripping the pure video and audio streams from the DVD using 0Sex' Elemental Streams setting. If there are still problems with the audio track, there are a number of methods available to convert the pcm to ac3 or mp2, or the ac3 to mp2.

And no, I don't believe QT can play ac3 audio. DVD Player can, but only from a DVD or a VIDEO_TS folder.

Best of luck. Sounds like a pain in the arse!

[forcelite]

Man you guys are great, Thanks so much.

I will try all of your hints when I get home today.

So sizzle should let me use the m2v's and ac3's without changing a thing, great.

Force

[born bad]

I'd use Sizzle .1 -- version .5 offers flashy menus, but it's said to have problems, at least with Panther. I've never used the option, but Sizzle does support LPCM (Linear PCM) audio, so it may accept your PCM file. If it fit on the original disc, it should fit on the copy (unless the original was a double-layered pro job).

If Sizzle gives you any of that "unreadable file" grief, try running the MPEGs through the MPEGFix tool in Gumby (check VersionTracker). It demuxes, analyzes the files and creates repaired copies, if necessary.

I've only recently begun using Gumby, and I can't believe I've lived this long without it. In addition to MPEGFix, the VCD/SVCD Jelly apps have become instantly invaluable. VCD Jelly extracts MPEGs from renamed DATs, VOBs, MOVs or whatever to ensure you're working with pure audio & video. Allowed me to clear my HD of some large problem files that wouldn't be accepted by any authoring app. Gumby's magic!

[DVmadman]

If you want to retain the best quality video then do not convert your VOBs or import them into FCP or iMovie.

If you want to do fairly precise cuts, do your editing at the ripping stage. Use YadeX to precisely extract the scenes you want from the existing DVD into individual VOB files. YadeX allows you to edit down to within a half a second by selecting scenes at the "object" level. Select the range of objects that you want with the mouse and hit command-B to save that range as a VOB file.

You can then re-author a new DVD with the extracted VOBs using Sizzle .1. If you are authoring a DVD with VOBs from more than one source DVD, make sure all of the VOBs have the same audio encoding.