Cutting A 3 Hour Long .mpg Into Several .mpg's

[EViS]

I have a 3 hour long .mpg captured from VHS at a 15,000 bitrate which I need to cut into around 10 different .mpg's, order swapped around, title screens placed in between and put back together to then form an ~8000 bitrate DVD compliant .mpg. I have access to any Adobe software and don't mind purchasing some cheaper software if need be.

How do I go about doing this? Will the video quality suffer (numerous re-encoding?) from cutting and moving sections around?

[nic2k4]

Don't cut it, just import it in Premiere and edit as you like. Then export it as a DVD compliant MPG. You'll need an authoring program to format things and make a menu. DVD Author GUI is free, I like TDA (not free) and you might already have Nerovision (some don't like it, but if your MPG is DVD compliant it won't re-encode).

[daamon]

An alternative would be to do your rearranging in Mpeg Video Wizard DVD - it's specifically written to handle MPG as an input and only re-encodes where it needs to (around the cuts) and not the whole MPG (I'm not suggesting Premiere does - in fact, I don't know).

Once done, output to MPG and then use ReJig to reencode down to a DVD compliant bitrate file.

nic2k4's suggestions for authoring tools would be the ones I'd suggest if you're starting out. Of course, if you're experienced and know how to use it, then having access to Adobe's Encore is an option.

[EViS]

Thanks guys, just to double check whether I've understood this right,

I can import the whole 3hour .mpg into Encore (or Premier), cut the .mpg up and move sections around, insert title screens (with the help of photoshop & after effects), and then re-encode everything in Encore to a DVD compliant .mpg? Thus Encoding will only happen once on the whole final .mpg?

By DVD compliant, will Encore output vobs, etc?
What's the difference between Encore & Premier?

[nic2k4]

I've never used Encore, so I had a look at Adobe. From what I can tell Premiere is used to edit the video footage and create the actual movie. Encore is the DVD mastering program, used to setup how to navigate the DVD and pick between all the movies and segments inside a movie on the disc. You would insert title screens in Premiere from Photoshop or After Effect. You would insert menu graphics (background, buttons...)in Encore from Photoshop.

Just put your 3hr footage in the media bin, then drop it on the timeline, set the entry and exit points for the first clip. Then grab the footage from the bin and drop it again on the timeline set the entry and exit points for the next clip...

[daamon]

I've never used Encore, so I had a look at Adobe. From what I can tell Premiere is used to edit the video footage and create the actual movie. Encore is the DVD mastering program, used to setup how to navigate the DVD and pick between all the movies and segments inside a movie on the disc.

Yes, exactly. I believe that Encore can encode to MPG too - I don't use it so not sure.

You would insert title screens in Premiere from Photoshop or After Effect. You would insert menu graphics (background, buttons...)in Encore from Photoshop.

Premiere Pro has a title making function - it's quite good.

Just put your 3hr footage in the media bin, then drop it on the timeline, set the entry and exit points for the first clip. Then grab the footage from the bin and drop it again on the timeline set the entry and exit points for the next clip...

Spot on.

[thecoalman]

I can import the whole 3hour .mpg into Encore (or Premier), cut the .mpg up and move sections around, insert title screens (with the help of photoshop & after effects), and then re-encode everything in Encore to a DVD compliant .mpg? Thus Encoding will only happen once on the whole final .mpg?

Just to add that's generally the defnition of a NLE editor. When you're working with it in the timeline it's not doing anything to the source files. One thing to note, I don't know if Premiere supports this because I don't use it but editors designed for working with MPEG will only reencode where necessary if your output settings for the video is the same as the input. For example if you make a cut and do a crossfade between the two sections it will only reencode the section the few seconds where the crossfade is. The pieces before and after the crossfade are left "as is".

Since your starting with 15,000 to begin with it has to be reencoded so this may not be of concern to you.