NLE that "smart renders" MPEG-2 and AC3

[Mr Chris]

I'm looking for a non-linear editor that can "smart render" DVD-compliant files - both video (MPEG-2) and audio (AC3). To give you some background, my workflow is simply VHS -> DVD recorder. From there, I'm ripping the DVD to my Windows 7 (64-bit) PC, and would like to achieve the following:

• Basic cutting and joining
• Fades in and out (video and audio)
• The occasional transition
• Maybe some titles and captions here and there
• Whatever little fixes are necessary

And after all that, the goal is to output a file with exactly the same specs as the sources, all ready for authoring to DVD in a separate program. As each clip will be 99% untouched, for the sake of not losing quality unnecessarily, I'd like to take advantage of "smart rendering". I stress that this goes for both video and audio.

I appreciate that asking for an NLE for all of that may come across like using the proverbial sledgehammer to crack a walnut, and if it can't be done, I'll soldier on with the various workarounds I'm currently using. But I don't think I'm asking the impossible... Am I?

[Baldrick]

Maybe some tmpgenc product. They support smart rendering. Tmpgenc mpeg2 smart renderer or Tmpgenc authoring works.


Sony MovieStudio and Vegas PRO also supports mpeg2 smart rendering.

[hydra3333]

Videoredo doesn't do fades nor transitions, hwoever manages edits just fine and their support is great.

Does no one use Nero's video editing tool ? It can be a bit basic but does have useful things and it does work; nero frequently has "special deals for the suite".

[thomasj]

Also check out Womble Video Wizard DVD or MPEG-VCR. I used Womble Video Wizard DVD.

[Mr Chris]

Maybe some tmpgenc product. They support smart rendering. Tmpgenc mpeg2 smart renderer or Tmpgenc authoring works.

Videoredo doesn't do fades nor transitions, hwoever manages edits just fine and their support is great.

They're not NLEs, though. VideoReDo and Authoring Works are actually what I use at the moment, and they're brilliant at what they do, but trying to achieve anything beyond basic cuts and joins feels like a work-around. I'm specifically looking for an NLE to replace them - but one that doesn't clumsily re-encode everything just for the sake of a single edit or fade or something.

Sony MovieStudio and Vegas PRO also supports mpeg2 smart rendering.

Thanks for those suggestions. Vegas is out of my league, but perhaps I'll get hold of a MovieStudio demo and see if I get on with it. You mention MPEG-2 smart rendering, but are you certain it can do the same for audio? I'm as concerned about the sound as I am about the picture, as some of my projects are music compilations. (From experience, even one or two full re-encodes of the audio can be noticeable.)

Also check out Womble Video Wizard DVD or MPEG-VCR.

I've heard good things about Womble, but have always held off due to it being limited to only one track. If all else fails, perhaps I'll give it a go. Same question while we're on the subject, though: does it definitely "smart render" audio in the same way as VideoReDo and Authoring Works?

Does no one use Nero's video editing tool?

I don't mind going down the Nero/Magix/Cyberlink etc. etc. type of route, as I'm generally only doing simple things that even the worst of those should be able to handle. As long as it "smart renders" both MPEG-2 video and AC3 audio, of course. Does anyone here have any experience of those more consumer-level sorts of NLEs?

[johnmeyer]

I own Vegas, and it can do smart rendering of MPEG-2 content, but it is very finicky, and it fails as often as it succeeds.

I need to smart render all sorts of different video formats, so I came up with a way that lets me use Vegas to do all the cuts and rearranging, and then do all the actual cuts with ffmpeg. You don't need to know anything about ffmpeg syntax to make it work.

What I do is the save the Vegas project (this will work with Movie Studio as well) as an EDL (Edit Decision List). I then import this into an Excel spreadsheet which contains a macro I wrote which converts the EDL into ffmpeg syntax. I copy/paste the results into a batch file, and when I execute that batch file, it runs ffmpeg to actually do the cuts. Here's a link to that Excel file:

Vegas EDL Cut Video Files Parser.xls

Another idea: if you search for the name "Nick Hope", you'll find that he created another workflow that does a similar thing.

Finally, here's a third alternative that uses Vegas (or Movie Studio) to do the editing, but then uses Womble to actually do the smart rendering. This workflow is actually a little simpler, but it does involve owning Womble (a paid program) as well as some version of Vegas. You make your cuts in Vegas (or Movie Studio), save as an EDL, and then use the free EDL to Womble converter. You then do the cuts in Womble. Here is a link to that free converter:

Vegas To Womble Converter