Complete newb to DV conversion...

[zerogun]

I downloaded a bunch of miniDV clips to my PowerBook G4 through firewire, and currently I've only used iMovie to 'organize' it.

As most of your know, these DV clips are massive and I'm trying to free up some much needed space by converting these clips to something more feasible.

I've been trying to use ffmpegX with no luck whatsoever, and everytime I try to convert the files, this error message keeps popping up. I have absolutely NO idea what it means, so could someone walk me through this and help me get these files off my HD please? Thanks

Encoding started on Tue Dec 19 14:23:09 EST 2006
MEncoder dev-CVS-050814-13:46-3.3 (C) 2000-2005 MPlayer Team
Mac OSX static build for ffmpegX
AltiVec found
CPU: PowerPC
Reading disc structure, please wait...
libdvdread: Can't open file VIDEO_TS.IFO.
Exiting...
Can't open VMG info!
File not found: '1'
Failed to open dvd://1
Cannot open file/device.

[Case]

This issue has come up before, iirc, although I wasn't able to find that thread anymore. For some reason it tries to find the source file on a DVD location instead of your HD.

[zerogun]

so....what is the solution to my problem? I need to convert these to DVD soon since Christmas Day is approaching!

[rumplestiltskin]

What sort of file from iMovie did you drop into ffmpegX? Did you export as...something?

You can always "show package contents" of your iMovie project file and find the reference movie contained therein. This will contain all of the edits, etc. that you see when you preview your video within iMovie. Drop that file into ffmpegX as the source.

If you are encoding to DVD you'll need the MPEG2 codec from Apple (about $20 or $30, IIRC).

[zerogun]

Under the Finder window, when I click on the movie clip, it says DV Movie as file type...this is what it looks like..



This if the file straight from iMovie that was downloaded from my DV cam.

Under "Get Info" the file type & extensions isn't displayed either (with extension hide unchecked). All it says is 'Clip25' for example. Quicktime automatically associated itself with the file for some reason, and I guess VLC doesn't recognize my DV format because I've tried playing it, and it didn't work.

So right now, I'm completely in the dark, and I don't know how I can convert these files to a DVD format. Or even an AVI at that.

[Case]

Try adding a ".dv" suffix to the filename. It could help ffmpegX (and VLC) dealing with the file.

[rumplestiltskin]

Yes, adding the ".dv" should do it.