About DVD editing

[row92]

I'm searching an effective way to take few seconds sequences of DVDs to make a compilation. Do I need to assemble then in native MPEG-2, (i.e. WITH THE MINIMUM LOSS OF QUALITY). With what tools ?

Moreover, since a DVD source is interlaced (although frame-based, do I need to deinterlace (e.g. avisynth) this content for having good quality on a video-projector ?

Lastly, is it possible to edit those sequences in Premiere ?
Thanks for your contribution!

[SupaCoopa]

If I'm not very mistaken, Premiere (version 6 and newer) can open and edit MPEG-2 streams. But not VOBs, you'll have to demux the video from the VOB first, using specific freeware tools.

Alternatively, your best bet is DVD2AVI, which can demux VOBs to AVI with a codec of your choice (or even frameserve to "fake" AVI) and you can also select the part of the video you want to extract.

Most good video projectors convert interlaced to progressive internally using hardware and they do a fine job. If yours doesn't do this trick you might get a better picture if you convert the video to progressive beforehand. There are many de-interlacing methods - some work better than others but choose the wrong one and you can completely ruin your video.

[echooff]

Depends on how much disk space you have and how big the compilation will be. Tmpg DvdAuthor (fully functional trial availible) allows you to importvobs and you can select just small pieces a and join them. When you have what you want output it in dvd format. One of the free ware tools to create a iso and mount it with daemons tools. open dvd author again and select you compilation from the image. DvdAuthor will offer to extract it as ampeg file. The result is a perfectly insync dvd ready mpeg2

[errandboy]

If I demux a VOB with "mpeg tools" of TMPGenc it gives me a .m2v video stream and one or two .ac3 audio streams. If I then bring the .m2v stream and one of the .ac3 streams into TMPG DVD Author and try to recreate a VOB, I get a message telling me that the combined bitrate of the two streams exceeds the maximum allowed for a standard DVD, namely 9848 kpbs. If the original VOB was compliant, how can this be? I have not edited or modified the .m2v and .ac3 streams that resulted from the demux of the first step.

[DonBerg]

I think TMPGenc set too low a maximum bitrate limit for its checking. It may just be reading the header of the MPG file for that bitrate setting, so you can alter it easy with header modification software.

[errandboy]

What kind of software can I use to edit the header? What's the best way to tell what the actual bit rate (kbps) of a particular audio or video file is?
After TMPGenc tells me the resulting VOB file will have too high of a bitrate (>9848kbps), it will let you go ahead and generate the VOB file. The resulting VOB(and associated IFO's) will not play on my standalone APEX AD800(very forgiving unit) but will play on my computer's DVD rom.

[DonBerg]

Try the free DVDPatcher utility to modify an MPG file's header bitrate setting, download it here:
http://mitglied.lycos.de/dvdpatcher/DVDPatcher_v106.zip

The main website is here:
http://mitglied.lycos.de/dvdpatcher/