Vet asking Newb question regarding which program to use.

[Doramius]

I need a simpler program to help with the below situation. The program I have requires me to change the encoding, then reauthor, make multiple chapters, cut out unwanted chapters that contain unwanted segments, then re-encode. Is there a simpler way of doing this. The files are vob on 2 discs. However, the video feed was recorded all in one stream, so there is only one chapter per disc. Anyone else who does a simple transfer from a video camera into their computer has run into this. I want to delete segments ranging from a few seconds to 10 minutes in length. I do want to add chapters, so I am not worried about that. My traditional method is a bit long and painstaking. Plus the quality starts dropping off a bit. Anyone have a better method or program? Another Thing is I just played the disc in a DVD player and recorded it in the format my current software requires, and then go through with making chapters, deleting unwanted chapters, then encoding it to a format I can burn to DVDr.

ANy help would be appreciated.

[smearbrick1]

If your source is not already DVD compatible (I think you said it was DV footage), convert with TMPGENC. Then, import into TMPGENC dvd author. Use the chapter cut/edit to remove unwanted parts and create chapters all at once. Author the dvd... if it is too large, use DVDshrink to transcode to the proper size.

You can probably avoid the DVDshrink step if you estimate your bitrate correctly.

[Doramius]

It's all on DVD now and properly compressed, I'm just trying to shrink it so it's not so long or lenthgy. Basically I'm editing out stupid parts of people scratching themselves or areas where it just seems dull. I thought of using DVD shrink, and I have used it in the past, but it just seems like a lengthy process, and my traditional process, also lengthy, seems to work better by cutting out to the frame. I was just wondering if there was an easier program. I plop in the disc. Save to hard drive. open up authoring menu. Create chapters to the frame. delete unwanted chapters. then burn to DVDr again. But I don't think I'm going to find anything like that. Or at least one at a very minimal cost. I obviously have experience in this, but I think I'm getting a bit frustrated that I have to do it the long way.

[ozymango]

If I understand you correctly, then Womble MPEG Video Wizard should do the trick for you -- there's a free (30 day) trial and if it does what you want, it's $120 US, very reasonable.

What you can do is this: You can just open a .vob file in Womble, it'll recognize it as pretty much a straight mpeg file, and then you can string 'em all together or chop 'em into however many pieces you want, and then "export" the edited files into new files. The export process doesn't change anything *unless* you add transition effects or mess with the soundtrack -- for straight cutting/trimming/joining, it won't re-encode anything, it'll just do a straight stream transfer. Then you just add the newly streamed files to your DVD authoring program and voila, you're done.

I assume you have some program for turning mpeg files back into DVD-ready format? For chapters 'n' stuff? Anyway, womble is very quick, amazingly quick actually, and allows for frame-accurate cuts, and for editing as I'm understanding you, this should work great (again assuming you're trying to edit .vob files, and don't want to re-encode anything, just cutting and splicing).

Good luck!

[rhegedus]

As stated before, TMPGEnc DVD Author will do all that for you.

[ozymango]

As stated before, TMPGEnc DVD Author will do all that for you.

Yup, it sure will. But I personally don't find DVD Author's editing function to work as easily as Wombles nor as quickly, though of course people can download either or both of these programs for a 30-day trial and then decide for themselves.

[Doramius]

Hmmmmmm, $70 vs. $120. I'll probably try both, but I'm also cheap. I feel it's an outrage to pay more than $30 for a disc that only costs $0.29 to make. But what are you going to do? Argh, me Buckaneers.

[rhegedus]

There was a TMPGEnc + DVDAuthor bundle for $100 a while back.

[ozymango]

Hmmmmmm, $70 vs. $120. I'll probably try both, but I'm also cheap.

Right there with you on that. And there's a heck of a lot of great free software out there that *almost* works that easily ... what's the old line about, if you're looking for something good, easy-to-use, and cheap, pick any two?

I've not found any one editor/DVD maker/whatever package that does everything I want, exactly as I want, but I do think the combination packages of TMPGenc are among the best bang for the buck. The interfaces can be a little klugy (sometimes it looks like things are translated from Chinese to English by people who don't speak either language ), but if you need edting *and* encoding *and* AC-3 support -- which is something to consider, I used to use all mp2 for audio until I found just a few friends whose DVD players wouldn't play back any sound unless the discs were AC-3 -- then definitely, ya gotta check out TMPgenc.

Good luck!

[jimmalenko]

Firstly I must say RTFM NOOB!

garnishing fellow OTPW members, tsk, tsk


Unfortunately MPEG editing has quite a few more pitfalls than AVI editing. I can think of a couple of ways (in no particular order of preference or difficulty):

1. AVISynth script, editing in virtualdub, re-encoding then authoring
2. DVDShrink using Start/End
3. Authoring to create chapter points, then rip to hd with splitting by chapter, and rejoin the ones you want using the guide here. This will exempt the chapters that are ads or whatever.


The third way would be my recommendation.

[Baldrick]

capture??? no. moving you to the newbie forum.

[ozymango]

Unfortunately MPEG editing has quite a few more pitfalls than AVI editing.

Yeah, but if it's just cutting and pasting we're talking about, doesn't seem worth it to jump through extra hoops if not needed, and while the guide is great, I think it falls under the umbrella rubric of "bit long and painstaking," which is what I think he was trying to avoid in the first place.

[sacajaweeda]

Sounds like a job for MPEG-VCR to me.

[Doramius]

Well I used DVD Shrink and TMPGEnc. I've used DVD shrink before and had this same issue. It worked, but not my favorite choice. WHile it was fairly simple, it didn't go to the 'frame' like I wanted it to. I breaks a second of time into 30 frames. You can move through it in half-second intervals, but sometimes you get little bits of unwanted items, or lightly cut out some small feature you want to keep. In other words, the splice isn't always smooth.

With TMPGEnc, I was able to get down to the frame. The transistions and splices were much better than with DVD Shrink. However, I had a bit of re-encoding and it took a bit of time to figure out how to use it. Others might have had a better time with it, but I still felt both processes took more time than I wanted to put into it. They also showed very slight, but visible losses of quality. Similar to switching a high res bmp image to 90% quality jpeg.

If you know of a program that will let me open up my .vob file, edit; splice; rearrange it, and then just burn it back to a DVDr as simply as that, let me know. Until then, it looks like the longer route is all that's available.

[Garibaldi]

Chopper Xp lets you cut out parts of vobs.
As far as cutting out multiple parts you can use cuttermaran or Mpeg2schnitt. There is also a really good program similar to that for linux- I can look it up if you want.
As far as reauthoring I would go with GUI for DVD Author- simple yet lets you make complex menu structures.
For reencoding you could try Rejig or ReStream. You could also try some others like BBMPEG, The Film Machine, or Avidemux (linux or windows ports).[/quote]

[Doramius]

Again, It's requireing me to re-encode. Something I don't want to do. If I have to split a single vob file into 2 parts to make my clean splice, that'll be fine. I can burn it right back. Again, a lot of these programs require you to re-encode the movie. Why? It was encoded in the first place. Every time I re-encode, I notice and can verify slight quality loss. It's not much, but I don't want any.

I'm trying to edit a family reunion, but describing how I want to do it might confuse people. The best or closest scenario I can give and I already have the retail DVDs. Lets say we have a TV recording of "The Simpson's" with commercials, burned to DVDR. I want to cleanly cut the commercials and reburn the smooth video without having to re-encode and subject the poor TV image quality to even more degradation. I want to be able to get to the frame, so I'm not getting choppy audio from scene to scene, nor am I getting parts of the commercials or previous scene into places where I don't want it. THen I just want to burn it back on disc. Re-encoding takes a bit of time to do, and I want to eliminate that time because I feel it's unnecessary for a program that was encoded in the first place. Editing the video is taking long enough, I don't want to waste more time on it than I have to, but it looks like I don't have much choice. The reunion video I'm doing is what I'm sending out as Christmas cards. Thanks go to AOL for supplying me with all my disc cases. :P

[gshelley61]

Womble MPEG-VCR and MPEG Video Wizard are frame accurate MPEG2 editors that do not re-encode. I use MVW all the time to edit my DVD recorder -RW's. The Womble products are not free, but are very fast and work better than anything else I've tried.

You can do I-frame editing with TMPGEnc DVD Author (or, for free with cuttermaran or MPEG2Schnitt), but as you have discovered the edit point is usually not right where you want it. That's why I wound up investing in Womble.

After I save the new edited .mpg from Womble, I have a freeware method of authoring. I demux the file with VOBEdit, load it into MPEG2Schnitt to select chapter points and create a chapter text file, then author a basic no-menu DVD with chapter stops in IFOEdit. I burn the DVD file to -R with Nero.

You could also just load in the edited .mpg in TMPGEnc DVD Author, but that costs money. Besides, all my DVD recorder stuff is in AC3 audio, which you can't hear with DVD Author unless you buy the plug-in. MPEG2Schnitt lets you monitor the AC3 audio just fine.

[Garibaldi]

I just wanted to follow up on the linux app for editing out commercials incase your interested. I would recommend it. Its called gopdit, and can be found here:
http://freshmeat.net/projects/gopdit/

[Doramius]

I think I will check out womble, but it still sounds a bit lengthy in process. I might have to find someone to create a program and maybe we can add it as a freeware somewhere online.

[Garibaldi]

I think I will check out womble, but it still sounds a bit lengthy in process. I might have to find someone to create a program and maybe we can add it as a freeware somewhere online.

Could you pm me if you come up with a piece of freeware?
Thanks,
Garibaldi

[Doramius]

Heck, I'll post it for everyone. I'll let you know if I find such software, but I'll be doing a bit of searching.

[Garibaldi]

I'll let you know if I find such software, but I'll be doing a bit of searching.

I would recommend looking around for linux too, there is a lot of free software for it, and most of its free.

[Doramius]

I'm a big fan of linux, but there isn't enough software out there for all the things I need or want to use or do, so I'm sunk with Windows. I hope linux gets on the ball and moves in quicker or they'll end up like MAC.

[Garibaldi]

I'm a big fan of linux, but there isn't enough software out there for all the things I need or want to use or do, so I'm sunk with Windows. I hope linux gets on the ball and moves in quicker or they'll end up like MAC.

I also need windows for certian stuff but you have to really give linux alot of credit, they have come all this way without a company, unlike microsoft.