DVD to AVI - Lossless Quality?

[tikigod19]

Hi,

I have a DVD that I made from a 720x576 mpeg but I need to re edit some of it and deleted the original source file. I have used ImTooDVDRipper and played around with the settings as well as another program which i forget the name of but both times the resulting avi file is much lower quality than the DVD footage. Does anyone know any settings or different bits of software that I can look at to rip with no compression at all so I can re edit the footage in the highest possible quality?
Thanks

[guns1inger]

You can either

1. Edit with a dedicated mpeg editor - Womble Mpeg Wizard or VideoRedo are both good - which will only re-encode the open GOPs or changed sections (e.g. if you add a fade etc) but leave the rest untouched

or

2. Convert the mpeg to a lossless format such as huffy or lagarith by using virtualdubmpeg-2 in Fast Recompress Mode. However this is only lossless until you re-encode the entire clip after the edits are done, at which time there will be some change to quality, although how noticeable is hard to say.

NB. Option 2 requires a lot of HDD space - 30 - 40 GB per hour of footage.

[tikigod19]

thanks for the prompt reply.. with option 1 will that actually get the files from DVD to an editable format? I really need to edit using premiere pro as I have some specific things that I only know how to do using that software. I take it that Womble Mpeg Wizard or VideoRedo are mpeg editing tools and not dvd ripping tools?

[guns1inger]

Yes, they are editors. If you want to go down the Premiere Pro route then you will have to re-encode the entire video.

If this is a commercial DVD, rip it to your HDD with DVDFab HD Decrypter, the use VOB2MPG to extract the mpeg program stream out for editing. If it is not a protected disc, just use VOB2MPG directly.

Personally, I would still convert to Huffyuv or Lagarith, then open it in Premiere. You can open the mpg directly in PP, but I think you will find it more responsive if you work with one of the other formats.

[tikigod19]

ok im slowly understanding.. its not a protected disc as I made the DVD. I'm downloading VOB2MPG now so I can use that to extract the data and convert to an mpeg? Will that be lossless quality?

What program would I use to convert to Huffyuv or Lagarith? What would the resulting files extension be? still mpg?

Many thanks

[guns1inger]

VOB2MPG just extracts the video/audio from the VOB, it doesn't re-encode, so there is no quality change.

Huffyuv or Lagarith are generally stored in the AVI container, so the extension will be .avi. You can use Virtualdubmpeg-2 in Fast Recompress Mode to convert it to Huffyuv or Lagarith. Make sure you have space though. 2 hours of full-D1 video is around 60GB using Lagarith, a little more using Huffyuv.

[tikigod19]

ok great i will use virtualdubmpeg-2.. I am new to this but used it yesterday, I assume I apply a compression filter and select the huffyuv codec and then push f7 and name the output file?