Editing MPEG2

[DEmberton]

I've made some SVCDs from the MPEG2 DTT recorder box I've got, via DVD2AVI and TMPEng Plus (not a DVD rip, but basically the same process). I've done some basic editing with TMPEng, by using the source range setting to take different parts of the source, encode them all to seperate MPEGs, and then use TMPEng's Merge and Cut to put them altogether. This seems to work mostly, but is a bit painful.

Is there a better way? Ideally, I'd like to setup all my edit points in another program, and have that save out the .d2v file in the way that DVD2AVI does. Then TMPEng would load that and see my edited source as one source file, even though it could actually be coming from several different source files. TMPEng would then encode the whole thing in one go.

Or are there any decent MPEG2 editors out there that aren't stupidly expensive, and powerful enough to be useful?

Thanks for any help

Dave

[DEmberton]

It seems AVISynth basically does what I want to be able to do. Whilst I'm not put off by a scripting language, I'm still going to need some other program to get the exact frame numbers to put into AviSynth. Is there really no other program that combines all these things?

Dave

[BJ_M]

vegas video or ulead product

[Xtasy2002]

Editing SVCD or MPEG-2 in any format is always slow & tiresome. There really is no easy way and even the high end packages sometimes cause problems. What I suggest you do instead is much simpler and faster.

Capture to AVI instead of MPG.
Use VirtualDub to open the AVI and cut all segments out in real time.
Frameserve the new video to TMPGEnc & encode SVCD.

The beauty of VDub is that you can slice out as many segments as you like from a video file all in the same sitting and then serve it, without re-saving anything.

[DEmberton]

The beauty of VDub is that you can slice out as many segments as you like from a video file all in the same sitting and then serve it, without re-saving anything.

That sounds like what I want to do. I don't want to have to go through the painful process of editing together my original MPEG2 files, having to save the whole lot out, and then getting that into TMPEng.

I didn't think virtual dub did much in the way of editing though? And unforunately, capturing as AVI isn't an option. But can virtual dub open MPEG2 via some other frameserver, like DVD2AVI?

Dave

[Sartori]

A vitual dub mod has been made which allows it to open mpeg2s and vobs . But I suppose it will still need to be reencoded .


http://webs.ono.com/de_xt/VirtualDub-1.4.13-MPEG2-AC3.zip

It does work I`ve tried it .

[fingernailX]

Some observations:

Without regard to $ Premiere 6.5 with the superb MainConcept Mpeg encoder plugin will do all you want and allow you to export the timeline to the encoder which is high speed and high quality.

I capture MPEG 2 I-frame only at 15Mbps and trim the commercials with Womble MPEGII VCR. The results in 5 or six files for an hour TV show. I can then load them up in the stand alone mpeg encoder and process them all to one file in batch mode to DVD or SVCD in about realtime.

A new VirtualDub mod will open mpeg2 files and allow you to save out to avi or frameserve and you can use the mpeg encoder of your choice. It won't let you save to mpeg 2 directly though. see http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=42808

IMHO - Womble is your best bet to trim and not run into audio sync problems but if you capture at a high bitrate and reencode to SVCD you'll be happier with the results.

[DEmberton]

Thanks. Will try out that VirtualDub mod, and have a look at Womble. From the sound of it, what you're doing in Womble is basically the same as I've been doing with TMPEng's MPEG tools up to now.

Dave

[DEmberton]

Got the Virtual DUB MPEG2 version, and it works great. But as I thought, Virtual DUB really isn't a lot of use as an editor beyond being able to cut out bits of the video. I really want to be able to copy and paste between two different videos.

Guess it's time to learn AVISynth then.

Dave