Editing a DVD captured from VHS

[hasbeen]

I have a set top DVD recorder and a DVD burner in my PC. I would like to use the set top box (a Phillips DVDR 985) to capture old family VHS tapes. I would then like to take the DVD to my PC and do editing (titles, cuts, transitions, repackaging, chapters) on the PC and burn the end product to +R DVDs to preserve, give to family members and friends etc.

The problem that I have is that the +RW from the Phillips box has normal looking .vob files and the like. There is a ton of info here about how to take and rip, convert to VCD etc. There does not seem to be any simple guides to do what I want to do. I have almost reached the point of giving up and saying I will have to get some kind of a capture card for the PC. It just seems to me that as set top DVD writers become more common, people will want to do what I want to do not only with old VHS's but with stuff recorded from TV broadcasts. There are lots of AVI and MPEG editors out there and a number of authoring programs but there does not seem to be a good way to tie them altogether that I understand. It seems to start with how to convert the .vob to something that an edit program can work with. Most of the conversion programs that I can find want to create seperate video and audio files. This makes no sense if I want to edit the converted file.

I have tried FlaskMpeg. It takes a very long time and failed at the end to create an mpeg2 file for me. I am trying again with the AVI output. Again it will take many hours to convert. Hopefully, I will end up with something usable. Even if I do, 12 hours or so to convert a full DVD seems excessive.

Thanks for any simple help that you can give me.

Harry

[handycam]

Hi,

The only way I have got round this is by converting the VOB files to DivX AVI format using DVD2AVI. I use the DivX codec at its maximum quality setting so it is slower than normal. This takes about 3-4 hours for 1 DVD. Then you can edit the AVI files with your normal program.

Warning - For some reason though the DivX introduces weird artifacts now and again turning whole portions of the video purple.

As yet I have found no other way round this although I'm sure it's possible to find a Frameserver which can read D2V project files (created by DVD2AVI) and produce a small fake AVI file which can be read by editing apps.

[Akai Rounin]

hasbeen: It seems that what you are looking for is a program that will directly edit a VOB file and then output the same. I know of no program that is available to the public at large that has this capability. Surely there is a way to edit and create VOB files, after all that is how DVD publishers produce their wares. But this type of software is almost certainly very expensive and must be licensed for use. You are right, it would be nice to skip the step of either capturing video to a PC or converting ripped VOBs, but there is currently no viable alternative for consumers.

HUN-YA!

Akai Rounin

[hasbeen]

Well, I thought I had found a good answer. MyDVD 3.5.1 will read the .ifo files from a Phillips 985 and allow you to work on a clip captured on the DVD recorder. Unfortunately, it only seems to pick up the first .vob contents, at least that is all it will pass to the arcsoft editor. Close, but not quite a cigar. You would have to split the clips on the 985 and then import them into MyDVD to get them into an editor. Not sure it is worth the effort.

Harry