Segment from DVD for online viewing

[xsrossiter]

Hi,

I would like to pull short segments (2-3 minutes) from a DVD and keep as high a quality as possible within an approximately 100 MB size and in common format for viewing over DSL or cable lines that provide lets say a minimum 300 kbps bandwidth.

My initial research shows this may be a bit involved so I am hoping to get a sketch outline of the steps and some help on the following:

Once the video is on the hard disk using something like DVD Decrypter what is a basic editor that would let me cut and paste a short segment to a separate file? I do have Windows Movie Maker 2 and it may be all I need for the simple task at hand although conversions into and out of Movie Maker may be necessary. Is DivX a good choice for preserving video quality while keeping file size reasonable? I am hoping for a resolution around 720 x 300 so that full screen viewing is high quality.

As I see it the process might flow as follows

Extract video
Convert if necessary to format editor can handle
Cut and paste desired segment
Convert segment to DivX (or other recommended format)

Thanks for all the help.

Steve

[mats.hogberg]

WMV is a good choice at low bitrates. But 100MB/2-3 min is really high bitrate - almost in the full DVD range., and well in the 1/2 D1 range. Rip to HDD, make mpeg out of VOB(s) with vob2mpg, load into WMM, cut out what you don't want, export. Experiment with different export settings 'til you've found an option that meets your needs both size and qualitywise.
The reason for WMV format is that all Windows boxes can play it without any codec installation. Alternative is mpeg1, but that's not as efficient.

/Mats

[xsrossiter]

This got me off to a good start. I actually went on a slightly different route due to another of your posts describing how to get subtitles. The routine I have come up with is the following:

(1) Rip to hard drive with DVD Decrypter
(2) Covert VOB's with subtitles to avi file with AutoGK
(3) Cut desired segment with VirtualDub. Windows Movie Maker was OK with the video but put a ringing sound in the audio track so I switched to VirtualDub.
(4) Convert avi file to wmv with Windows Media Encoder

It works but I am having a hard time with compression settings in VirtualDub so that the extracted segment is as good a quality as the avi file produced by AutoGK. I may need different codec's than came with the AutoGK install package or to find the magic combination of video compression settings with the ones I have. Any suggestions on this end?

Thanks again, Steve.

[jimmalenko]

If hard drive space is not an issue, I'd recommend the Panasonic DV codec to be used when exporting from virtualdub. Either that or do your cuts on keyframes and you should be able to use Direct Stream Copy mode in virtualdub (no re-encoding).

[mats.hogberg]

You could also skip the AutoGK stage, by loading the VOB directly into VirtualDubMod. Cut and add your subtitles with VD if you wish, and save as DV AVI as jimmalenko suggests. Then finally run the DV AVI thru WME
The less you reencode, the better the end quality (and the lesser time the process takes)
/Mats

[rad1701]

Fairuse program works great to me. Quality is superb and easy and quick to use.