Convert DVD to DV AVI

[bgmagic]

Hello, I'm looking to convert a couple DVDs to the DV AVI format to edit in Adobe Premier. Does anyone have any idea on how to get video from a DVD to DV AVI so it can be edited?

Thanks

[guns1inger]

If you must, virtualdubmpeg2 and the Panasonic DV codec.

[Dugg]

Guns1inger, I have found this on a search. I am doing a 3D movie and saved still which work fine in Premiere Pro 2 but aren't working for the moving menu. It will take a dv avi but it looks "liney" so I burned the title segment to a DVD format and want to convert it back to Dv avi to see if I can get a cleaner menu.

I downloaded the VirtualDub and the PanasonicDV. However when I open the DVD it does not give me an option to save it as dv-avi. I rightclicked the file and chose 'install'. What am I missing???

[guns1inger]

Liney probably means interlaced. Post some shots of the problem, and a description of how you have rendered the video from your 3D app. Most good ones allow you to render progressive or interlaced output.

[Dugg]

Hmmm. I used Lightwave and rendered out my piece as numbered stills and then imported them into PP2 which has worked fine, except for the menu. I believe I have always worked with nondropframe and progressive.

Are you saying that when I exported the stills as a Dv-avi I may have not had it on progressive? Or that the final output for the DVD was not progressive?

menu_0001.tif

Still from the menu background

[guns1inger]

To be honest, I cannot see anything wrong with the image you posted. It doesn't show any artifacts that I can see.

If you just render numbered stills at 720 x 480 then you have progressive images, in which case you should also render them at 23.976 fps. These can then be encoded as progressive video as 23.976 with 3:2 pulldown flags applied, and the TV will take care of the rest for you. If you rendered at 29.970 fps you may have issues, and if you rendered at something arbitrary, such as 24 or 30 fps you may have issues.

If you want to render at 29.970 fps then you should actually render at 59.94 fields per second (LW should support this). What you will get is half height frames because each contains only every second scanline. However when you put them together you get 29.970 fps interlaced, as they should be.

[Dugg]

Sorry, I am such a newbie at all this. I am also hoping my total frustration isn't showing through. It has been a long and difficult journey and the closer I get to a finish line the more issues come up.

That is the a still from a series of 768 which I am trying to create a 25:18 moving menu at non-dropframe rates.

In LW I have rendered stills at 30/sec and they have translated well into the Premiere environment - except the menu which would play through once and then not cycle as it should (it would go black). So I was trying to convert it to a dv-avi file which worked except for the lines.

I thought DV was inherently 720x480 at a .9 and inherently was 29.976 fps? That is the kind of file I want to turn my stills into so that they translate to the rest of the material. Is this not so? Is it because I am in NTSCland?

I have just started another encoding which takes 24 hours, so I I think I will get some sleep as I am awfully cranky right now.

[guns1inger]

except the menu which would play through once and then not cycle as it should (it would go black)

That is an authoring issue, not something that converting to DV avi fiell fix.

What do you use for authoring ?

[Dugg]

I tried to use Encore but it wouldn't work with the stills from LW and the video files that I exported from Premiere looked awful in the end product, so I returned to Premeire for authoring. I liked the look of things much better but it was a real bugger to get it to give me a little control over what I wanted in the menu.

Working from dv-avi files did get me over the now-you-see-it-now-you-don't problem. I do not know why PP2 liked them better.

I expect that with what I have been learning recently, I could possibly get a file which would work in Encore but by now I am so close to finishing this piece that I just want to try to get rid of the lines and be finished.

I may start to render off a PAL version (and perhaps HD) of the animation and I hope that going through things a second time will be easier. I am really new to all this and with what I had to learn about 3D modeling, surfacing, animating and then rendering (I had to build a small renderfarm) then learning Premiere and reluctantly Encore... well, I am getting a little punch-drunk. Thanks so much for your help!

It is currently 2/3 through another encoding test. (I have taken to encoding to an ISO)

[Dugg]

Well, it didn't work - again. I have been working on a menu for over a month.

This is not as bad looking as it is on the TV, but you can see from the still that there are jagged edges to all the arcs.

Any suggestions?

Edit: Sorry, my screen capture program showed me that it captured it but when I look at the final file it is black.

[guns1inger]

I still haven't seen the jaggies, so it is hard to comment further at this stage. How big is the menu video ? Perhaps you can post it somewhere.

[Dugg]

Sorry still trying to get it to work. I have now put the program onto one of the machines in my renderfarm which runs XP 64. It installed fine and works well but when I went to burn, it didn't recognize the DVD drive, nor will it let me burn to a folder or ISO

Any suggestions?

[Ozirus]

Hi,

Im trying to convert a VOB file to DV AVI using Virtual Dub Mpeg2 and the Panasonic DV codec. When I open my VOB file in Virtual Dub, I have 4 options for Audio, 1 mpeg track and 3 AC3 tracks.

MPEG Audio Stream 0xC3
Dolby AC-3 Audio (substream 0x80)
Dolby AC-3 Audio (substream 0x81)
Dolby AC-3 Audio (substream 0x82)

I understand what these are technically. Assuming the first is the dolby 2ch track, an English 5.1 etc.

Whenever I open this file in Virtual Dub using the mpeg audio, there is no audio at all when I play the file and when I try to export the audio and/or video together. When I open the same file in Virtual Dub using an AC-3 track, I get an error message when I try to play the file and when I try to export the file;

'No audio decompressor could be found to decompress the source audio format. (source format tag: 2000)

Anyone know what may be causing this? I know a little about codecs but I'm not really sure if I have the right ones or what i would need exactly if that's the problem. I wouldn't even be bothering but I'm unable to import .vob files into premier pro 2 so I need to (would like to) convert it to DV Avi so I can.

Any help would be much appreciated,
Thanks.

P.S. I'm using CountryMouse's DVD to DV AVI tutorial, this is the only part I'm stuck on and for some reason there's no mention of having to select an audio track when first opening the file in Virtual Dub. Not sure if that helps.

[Baldrick]

Try install the AC3 ACM Decompressor and you should be able to convert to pcm wav in Virtualdubmpeg2.

[Ozirus]

Thanks for the help, worked perfectly. Cheers.