I need help in understanding *.gi files, from my Panasonic DVD burner

[dwight55]

Our church records each Sunday service with a Sony Hi8 camera, feeding a Panasonic DMR-EA38V, DVD recorder.

I purchased Pinnacle Studio 15, thinking I could edit the DVD's with it (sometimes the sound needs bumped up). Pinnacle will not open the files.

Also, . . . if I put the DVD in the computer and tell Pinnacle to import the DVD, . . . it is usually something near 90 minutes, . . . all Pinnacle will import is the first 6.1 or 6.2 seconds.

I can use Roxio to copy the DVD's, . . . no problem, . . . using -R media, . . . they work in everyone's machines.

I used Roxio to save a cop of one of the DVD's to my hard drive, . . . thinking I could open it up with Pinnacle, and edit it. There are three files, all ending in the *.gi extension.

Can someone tell me what I have to do to be able to edit these files, . . . we are wanting to send these copies out to some of our folks who can't make it to service because of sickness or just old age and infirmity. It is a real blessing to them when they get a good copy.

Thanks, May God bless,
Dwight

[aedipuss]

.gi was used on computers using the fat file format to get around the 1gb file size limit. so instead of a single 4~5gb .iso file there were multiple gi files that the burning program could put back together to create a dvd file image.

instead of creating an image of the disc you need to copy the files off the disc as files. just copy/paste the video_ts folder onto your hard drive.

[OldMan64]

Our church records each Sunday service with a Sony Hi8 camera, feeding a Panasonic DMR-EA38V, DVD recorder.

I can use Roxio to copy the DVD's, . . . no problem, . . . using -R media, . . . they work in everyone's machines.

I used Roxio to save a cop of one of the DVD's to my hard drive, . . . thinking I could open it up with Pinnacle, and edit it. There are three files, all ending in the *.gi extension.

Can someone tell me what I have to do to be able to edit these files, . . . we are wanting to send these copies out to some of our folks who can't make it to service because of sickness or just old age and infirmity. It is a real blessing to them when they get a good copy.

Thanks, May God bless,
Dwight

You do not specify which version of Roxio that is on hand but Roxio can be used for the editing that is described in the post with no need for Pinnacle Studio. If there is a need to direction with editing with Roxio, look at this: http://saknis.net/Roxio/cutting%20out%20a%20section/cutting%20out%20a%20section.html
"Bumping up the audio" is also possible while you have the clip in Videowave. IMHO Pinnacle is way more resource intensive vs Roxio

[dwight55]

Thank you very much for the video, OldMan64, . . . and, yes, Pinnacle is a resource hog in all capital letters.

My main problem, though, is that my Panasonic DVD recorder takes the input from a Hi8 camera, . . . turns it into *.vob files, and finalizes it in a *.gi format.

So far, every thing I have tried has not let me edit the whole thing in either Roxio or Pinnacle. The hold up is the *.gi files and the *.vob files. I am stumbling over them.

I found a free program to change the *.vob to *.mpg but for some reason about half the video seems to be lost, . . . I get it in sections, with large gaps of lost video between the sections.

Anyway, . . . I'm struggling.

May God bless,
Dwight

[OldMan64]

I realize that using the DVD recorder makes the conversion to DVD really easy, but they sometimes do not make the DVD the same way as a computer program would. It would seem that the DVDs created by the Panasonic play OK in a stand alone DVD player, do they play in a computer DVD drive?(using a player software) Let's start there. If they will play in Media player or VLC when the DVD is inserted in the computer DVD drive, then there has to be compliant structure somewhere on the disk.
When the "My Computer" screen is open, with the drive that has the DVD from the Panasonic, right click and pick explore. What do you see? Should be two folders AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS. Double click the VIDEO_TS to open. Now what do you see?

[aedipuss]

well which is it? first you said roxio made the .gi files when you tried to save a copy. now you say the panasonic did it.

[usually_quiet]

Thank you very much for the video, OldMan64, . . . and, yes, Pinnacle is a resource hog in all capital letters.

My main problem, though, is that my Panasonic DVD recorder takes the input from a Hi8 camera, . . . turns it into *.vob files, and finalizes it in a *.gi format.

So far, every thing I have tried has not let me edit the whole thing in either Roxio or Pinnacle. The hold up is the *.gi files and the *.vob files. I am stumbling over them.

I found a free program to change the *.vob to *.mpg but for some reason about half the video seems to be lost, . . . I get it in sections, with large gaps of lost video between the sections.

Anyway, . . . I'm struggling.

May God bless,
Dwight

Panasonic DVD recorders either record discs in DVD video mode, which results in the usual DVD files and folders, or VR mode, which resuls in a DVD_RTAV folder containing VR_MANGR.BUP, VR_MANGR.IFO, and VR_MOVIE.VRO files. (DVD-R or DVD-RW media require finalization before the DVD video file structure is created.)

The .gi files are from Roxio. The files and folders on a DVD can be copied to a PC for editing using a simple cut and paste. There is no reason to use Roxio to do it.

There are editors that can work with VOB and VRO files directly. TMPGEnc Video Mastering Works and VideoReDo Plus are two examples of such programs, but there are others as well.

VOB2MPG joins the VOB files for a recording session, re-packages them in an .mpg container and copies them to an HDD without changing the audio and video in any way. Is that what you are using? If you are using that and have gaps, you are not using it properly.

[dwight55]

usually_quiet, . . . up until today, I was trying to use IsoBuster and WinX Free VOB to MP4 converter. I don't know how they were doing it, but they would only pick up portions of the video. At your suggestion I grabbed VOB2MPG and it worked even better than I had hoped for.

I still have a problem with the Pinnacle, . . . every time I go to create the video disk, . . . it locks up. It locks up the program, my computer, even locks up the 3 fingered salute, . . . I have to cut the power to it to kill it.

My Roxio is acting up too, . . . I'm probably going to the computer store and grabbing a new copy of something to burn DVD's with, . . . just do the editing in Pinnacle and the burning in something else.

To Everyone: thank you for your suggestions and comments, . . . it is indeed wonderful to find so many helpful folks at one place.

May God bless,
Dwight

[usually_quiet]

There are some free DVD authoring tools available that may fill your needs, DVDAuthorGUI and DVDStyler are two that are not difficult to learn. There is no better software for DVD burning than ImgBurn, which is also free,