Newbie question - Organising Video Clips

[buybuy]

Hi,
I have 300 DVDs of video recording (300 hours) need to be edited and organised.
Some of them are in B/W from old days.
I have to clip about 10 clips from each DVD (max of 5 minutes of each clip) and arrange them in a HD for easy retrival.

I need some expert advise on doing this.

When I try to convert them into .mov file, each 5 minute clip takes 7GB space. I have 500GB space on the HD. I can add one more 500GB into the system. But still I will not be able store all clips in the PC.

I am reading a lot about divX and seriously thinking about using it. If I convert all these files into divX format - will the video loss quality. How do we compare the divX quality with QuickTime .mov quality.
Can I do this directly from the DVD or I still have to create .mov clips files first and do the divX conversion?
Is there an easy way like a batch job - can I could do this?
Any suggestions in this regard will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[Bjs]

You may be using the same scale as the dvd titles when converting to mov ... thats why they are enormous .

Dvd clips to mov to divx / xvid ... say what the ... thats not right .

Divx ... I got to puke ... go with xvid

Vdub will handle batch , rescaling , video conversion , audio conversion .

Just with so many clips to do ... dont expect all this work to be done over night .

------------------

Do a test conversion in vdub from one clip with high action ... set the video bitrate to 1200kpbs ... and play it back when it is completed .

Do another at 2500kpbs ... and then compare where the quality lies ... from here you will know what the maximum value will be for all ... sure ... you can float the value between clips ... but thats alot more work .

Leave VBR audio where it should be ... in hell ... use CBR , it will give less problems later should you wish to reconvert them to another form .

Audio compression as mpeg - layer 3 , choose 48kbit/s , 22,050hz , stereo ... 6kbps .

My five minute dvd clip , using 720x576 , 1200kbps for xvid , same audio reference as above , came out at 45mbs .

So 300 x 10 = 3000 x 45mb = 135,000 mbs or 135 gigabytes storage required .

Down scaling the video size would bring smaller final result .

[buybuy]

Hi Bjs - Thank you for the quick response. I have Vdub installed in my PC. Couldn't figure out how to do.

Vdub will do the extract straight from DVD - from to locations?
Thanks

[redwudz]

VirtualDub Mod or VirtualDub MP2 will accept VOBs from a DVD. Then you can encode to Xvid or Divx. This will work well enough if you only need small parts from each DVD. But if the DVD had 4 or 5 VOB files and you wanted them all, it could get a little tedious.

Other ways: VOB2MPEG if you want to convert the whole DVD file to one large MPEG. Then you could use VDM or VD MP2 to edit with and encode to your choice of MPEG-4 formats like Divx or Xvid. VOB2MPEG is fairly fast, as it is just extracting, not encoding. These are all freeware, so no cost to try.

Or you could use a MPEG editor that accepts VOBs and cut out just what you want in MPEG-2 format, then encode that to MPEG-4 format with VDM. You could use an editor like VideoReDo or MPEG Video Wizard. They are payware, though, and Wizard is a little pricey. But you could test out the trial versions of both programs.

Probably the least handling of the files would be a VirtualDub method.

Depending on how fast your CPU and system is, this all could take a lot of time. You might want to look into some form of batch processing for the encodes and let them run overnight to speed things up a little once you have made your edits.

[yoda313]

Vdub will do the extract straight from DVD - from to locations

No. Vdub is an editor not a ripper. For homemade dvds use dvd decrypter. If they are professionally made use a newer ripper like ripit4me or dvdfabdecrypter.

From there vdubmod or vdubmpeg2 can handle the vob files.

[buybuy]

I used the dvddecrypter to rip some samples and used SUPER to convert the VOB into divX and then try to use the avi output from SUPER on virtualModDub and VirtualMod to edit the file.
They both give an error "Couldn't locate decompressor for format 'DIVX [divX 4+]. VirtualDub requires a Video for Windows (VFW) compatible codec to decompress video...."

Any idea why this is happening?

BTW - Is there a specific difference between virtualModDub and VirtualMod? They both appear same and behave same too.