Advice needed with video editing / DVD authoring

[Dangelus]

Hi,

Just like to say that the knowledge here is amazing! I need a little advise if somebody would be so kind...

I have been reading the guides but I am a little confused with the choice of applications etc.

I am running a WinXP system and I want to improve my video editing / DVD authoring skills.

I will be re-authoring my Wedding DVD to hopefully gain these skills. The DVD is 4:3 PAL fully authored with menus etc. Here is what I want to do:

1) Rip DVD and demux. DONE THIS!

2) I need software advise on splitting the video footage into separate 'scenes' for easy editing.

3) I want to crop the 4:3 footage to 16:9 anamorphic. I tried doing this with TMpgenc Xpress but I'm not sure of the results. Any other software better? I used the following steps:

- Cropped 72 pixels from top and 72 pixels from bottom ( some scenes this will be less even to keep action in the frame)
- resize to 720x576? is this right?
- do I need to deinterlace? opinions vary!
- do I need to re-encode here? re-encode to 16:9 PAL ananmorphic?

Have I got this right?

4) One scene is very dark. Any way to lighten this up? filters, apps?

5) merge the re-edited scenes back together - software advice needed

6)edit and sync up the extracted audio with the new footage - software advice needed

7) re-author dvd, menus etc - software advice needed

Thanks again for reading this and for any advice that can help me!

Dangelus

[lordsmurf]

Here's what I would do:

1- Decompile the DVD back to source files, single VOB per video. Use DVD Decrypter.

2- Demux a/v in TMPGEnc, using the MPEG TOOLS. Free version is fine for this. Do not use simple demux, do the normal one, so you don't grab the VOB junk.

3- Convert the audio to WAV with Besweet or FFMPEG

4- Convert the video to an uncompressed AVI file in VirtualDub (MPEG version)

5- Take the WAV and AVI and import into Adobe Premeire. Edit away. When done, export with Adobe MPEG Encoder (MainConcept) or Procoder.

6- Re-Author in whatever. Ulead DVDWS2 is what I suggest, but SVCD2DVD and TDA are two inexpensive options that work decently.

7- Burn in RecordNow or ImgBurn (Build Mode), if SL media was used. If you're doing DL media, then PgcEdit and ImgBurn combo.

All done.

[guns1inger]

Cropped 72 pixels from top and 72 pixels from bottom ( some scenes this will be less even to keep action in the frame)

Er, no, they won't. If you want 16:9 PAL then you have to take 144 lines out from somewhere before resizing up. However you have identified the issue with straight cropping - you can't guarantee that what you wan't remains in frame.

The best method I have used (not to say it the best there is, but it works for me) is to do this inside a godd editing package that allows you to reframe the image using keyframes. This way you can first hide the 72 pixels top and bottom, the create what are basically faked camera moves to keep the focal point in frame. Once you have the new image right, you can worry about actually cropping and resizing the image. I use Vegas, and I suspect that Vegas Movie Studio can do pretty much the same type of thing.

It will also take care of your editing and audio needs, and has some great filters for fixing the image - within reason. Dark footage is often also very grainy, so you have to find a trade off between getting slight more detail, but also having more pronounced noise. You will have to play to find the best balance.

Movie Studio can also author discs, but I have not used it, so I cannot comment on how well it authors, or what freedoms it gives you. I use DVD Lab Pro for my authoring, and am very happy with it. It is not wizard driven and doesn't hold your hand however, so it is not for everybody.

You do not need to deinterlace, and nor should you. Software deinterlacing rarely does much for the image quality. For people with standard TVs, interlaced is best. For those with progressive players and TVs, the hardware will do a much better job on-the-fly than any software solution.

Outside of packages like Movie Studio there are other tools, most of them free, that can also be used to enhance footage. Virtualdub and avisynth both have a huge range of downloadable filters to address pretty much any flaws that can crop up with video.

[Dangelus]

Many thanks for the advice. This has given me an idea of where to start.

Thanks again!