Video Editing Software

[Cooldown]

I hope I'm posting this in the right area. I'm looking for some video editing software that will let me add chapters to my videos. I just bought some DVD ripping software so I can finally copy some of my DVD's that I watch often. They are starting to get micro-scratches. I would like to preserve the chapters of the DVD when I rip them and the program doesn't support it. Does any program support putting in chapters that you can skip back and forth between, without creating separate files?

[pepegot1]

You can do that easily with Corel VS Pro X5
I use Corel Videostudio PRO X5 for my video editing. Then, one day I downloaded Vegas Movie Studio 11 Platinum and tried it out. The level of complexity between the two is enormous. Things that are easily done in Corel are more envolved in Vegas. Moving around with a storyboard editor, in Corel, is a simple matter. When you only have a timeline (Vegas,) it's a bitch to locate and move around efficiently with 50 to 60 clips or more. You must edit in small packets.
Also, in rendering, I was in for a big surprise-few talk about this. The author of "101 Tips, Tricks and Techniques," Bill Myers substantiated what I found out through experience. A one hour video, with many effects, can take over five hours to render in Vegas. I hate to think how long my European Trip Video, of over two hours, would have taken-over night to be sure. Apparently, Vegas lovers are not bothered by this fact. So, rendering and fexibility of movement are Vegas shortfalls to me.
Now that I mentioned the bad, here is the good. Vegas is extremely powerful in motion video, color correction, chroma key, and Pan/Zoom. It blows Corel away, to mention only these few things of which there are more. It takes a steep learning curve but, it is well worth the effort. "Nothing good of consequence is ever accomplished without exertion." So, I use Vegas for clip editing and effects and then put clips into Corel for quick rendering and flexibility. I take the best from both and with excellent result My videos produced by Corel are vivid, rich in color and clarity that I don't think waiting an extra four hours, or more, can noticeably improve upon.
Get Vegas for ZOOM!

[manono]

If by ''DVD ripping software'' you mean decrypting them onto the hard drive, then they still have the chapters in them at that point. You can easily extract the chapters by using either PGCEdit or PGCDemux (or other programs). You can even get them while decrypting the DVD if using DVDDecrypter for the job. Once on the hard drive maybe PGCEdit might be the more useful as it can give them to you in a variety of formats so you can use them in most authoring programs, depending on the format needed. Open the DVD, double-click on the movie, and hit the 'CellTimes.txt' button.

As for, "Does any program support putting in chapters that you can skip back and forth between", any decent authoring program supports the addition of chapter points to a reauthored DVD. If you paid good money for some DVD authoring program that doesn't support the addition of chapters, then you got ripped off. If, on the other hand, you are converting to some other format besides DVD video, many such formats don't support the use of chapters.

[Peppino]

You can add chapters with Sony Vegas Pro using chapter markers. Position the cursor where you want the chapter, then press M.

[Ahari]

I think ripping the DVD with MakeMKV includes the original chapters - I may be wrong though.

[Hoser Rob]

"... I would like to preserve the chapters of the DVD when I rip them and the program doesn't support it ...

I'm a bit unclear about this but it sounds to me like you need another program or output container/format. Any dvd decrypter I know of will support chapters. If you want to retain the ones from the dvd that's no problem.

I use dvdfab hd decrypter ... the free part. I don't like the rest of it. Send it to a folder containing uncompressed dvd-9 files.

Then you encode it to h.264, which does support chapters. I prefer to use the .mkv extension/container. It supports chapters and subs better.

I use handbrake or vidcoder to encode the rips, although many people use 'rip' to mean both decrypting and enoding.

Vidcoder is basically handbrake (though handbrake has been updated) with a simpler interface. It's easier for beginners, and it still uses target file size mode, which the newest handbrake has dropped, and which is easier at first.

Handbrake is the only encoder I know of that works very well, doesn't require 3rd party codecs that shouldn't be used with windows 7, and doesn't require you to be a knowledgeable video geek to use them.

Haven't tried makemkv myself. It sounds even simpler ... I'd assume it preserves chapters, and certainly wouldn't pay for it otherwise ... but it doesn't compress the file size at all. This may or may not matter to you.

[chowmein]

Why is everybody jumping ahead of what the OP is asking? Only manono answered correctly.