Converting a DVD to AVI using DVD2AVI

[hankduck]

Hi;

I want to take a movie I edited and burned onto a DVD when I was a little less knowledgeable and reedit it. I got DVD2AVI and started the process. The movie is 58 minutes long with about 5 "over lay" titles and no menus or chapters.

Once it got started, after about 40 minutes, the estimated time to complete was 34 hours.

I have more than adequate dedicated hard drive space via firewire and a 1.4 GHz celeron with 624 MB of RAM.

Does this seem reasonable?

Thanks!

[Baldrick]

some tools can edit dvds, https://www.videohelp.com/guides.php?guideid=638&howtoselect=3;29#638

or convert to avi with Dr. Divx.

[RabidDog]

you need mpegshnitt I think or any mpeg2 editor

[hankduck]

I appreciate your replies but you didn't comment on the 1Click DVD2AVI question.

Isn't that a decent program?

[Baldrick]

if it doesn't work try another tool . dvd2avi is mainly for frameserving...I have never used it to convert to avi. You can also try Virtualdub-MPEG2 and Vidomi(they are FREEEEEEEE).

[soneman]

Why dont you try using FlaskMPEG? It will convert to DivX AVI and add subtitles if you want aswell. It usually adds an extra half hour onto the length of the movie fro encoding. So for a 90 minute film, encoding will take 120 minutes.

Like Baldrick said, I also use DVD2AVI for frameserving and extracting WAV audio. Apart from that, you should use FlaskMPEG.

[FulciLives]

I'd say your best bet is either VirtualDubMod or VirtualDub-MPEG2

You want to rip you DVD to your HDD using FILE MODE in DVD Decrypter but make sure you set it up for NO FILE SPLITTING.

That should give you one big VOB that you can import into one of the programs I mentioned above.

Then you can convert to any AVI format you want including DV AVI which is probably the best if you need to do extensive editing although if you don't want to loose much quality you might want to try the HuffyUV codec though it might be harder to edit from that.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[hankduck]

I appreciate all your responses and suggestions.

With respect to DivX, my aim is to end up burning a DVD with the highest quality possible for playing on a stand-alone DVD player.

The 58 minute DVD I'm working on is one of clips from family activities over a couple of years which I converted from VHS via a Canopus ADVC100 and added 5 titles using Pinnacle Studio 9. I burned the DVD using Studio as well.

On my stand-alone player, the video is excellent.

My problem is that the sound track, the original, is not loud enough when the DVD plays on my player, although it is adequate when I play it on my laptop. If I had anticipated this during editing, I could have simply increased the audio volume prior to rendering.

Other than reediting to increase the soundtrack volume, I'm not aware of any other method to accomplish this, and my understanding is that the best format for editing is AVI.

[FulciLives]

Other than reediting to increase the soundtrack volume, I'm not aware of any other method to accomplish this, and my understanding is that the best format for editing is AVI.

Hold on!

If all you need to do is adjust the volume level and nothing else then that can be done by re-encoding the audio BUT not the video.

Use DVD Decrypter in IFO mode NO FILE SPLITTING and you can demux the video file (which will be M2V file format) and then the audio (which will be MPA/MP2 or AC3 or PCM WAV depending on what it is).

You can then **** around with the audio and re-create a new DVD using the same video ... without re-encoding the video.

As for the audio ... get it into PCM WAV format (if it isn't already) and try to normalize it to 0.0db and if the video is only 58 minutes long then you can probably leave the audio as PCM WAV for the new DVD version otherwise convert it to AC-3 format.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[hankduck]

Thanks for the suggestions, John.

As I understand it, with files from the DVD format, the audio is encrypted (?encoded) together with the video. With DVD Decrypter, after you demux the video file, does this separate out the audio files? If not, how do I demux the audio?

Now, once I have the audio, and normalize it to 0.0 db, how do I know it’s going to give me adequate volume on playback of the final DVD? I would think normalizing it would keep it at the level at which it was originally recorded.

When I have accomplished the above how do I reencode both audio and video back into DVD format for burning?

I acknowledge my rank ignorance in the world of digital video.

[FulciLives]

Thanks for the suggestions, John.

As I understand it, with files from the DVD format, the audio is encrypted (?encoded) together with the video. With DVD Decrypter, after you demux the video file, does this separate out the audio files? If not, how do I demux the audio?

If you use IFO MODE and go into STREAM MODE then you can demux the VIDEO to a VIDEO ONLY FILE and the AUDIO to an AUDIO ONLY FILE.

There are actually many different ways to do this (get seperate video and audio file) but that is the why I would do it.

Now, once I have the audio, and normalize it to 0.0 db, how do I know it’s going to give me adequate volume on playback of the final DVD? I would think normalizing it would keep it at the level at which it was originally recorded.

If the volume is too low to begin with because you recorded it too low in volume then normalize should do the trick. It's what I always do but I admit I am no audio expert so there might be a better way but that way works for me.

For instance if your highest high is -10.0db it becomes 0.0db after you normalize which in effect "raises" the volume overall since 0.0db is "louder" than -10.0db

When I have accomplished the above how do I reencode both audio and video back into DVD format for burning?

Just like you did the first time. Any decent DVD authoring program will accept seperate video and audio files.

I acknowledge my rank ignorance in the world of digital video.

The guides here on this website will cover alot of the detals of what you are trying to do eventhough there may not be one single guide that covers it all.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
Check out the LORDSMURF WEBSITE as he has a section on "playing around" with audio using SoundForge.

[feenix]

You could try it this way (never had any need to do it myself but the theory is correct):-

1.ReJig > IFO Mode > Demux Video. (Runs straight from DVD - no need for DVDDecryptor etc)

This gives you a Video stream (M2V) and an audio stream (AC3, MP2 etc).

2. Do whatever you want to do with the audio (I would use Besweet)

3. ReJig (again!) > DVD Author Mode.

Load the M2V (from above) as the Video and the 'new' audio file as Audio, pick a destination directory and then press 'create'.

You then have an Authored DVD with new audio and the original video!