Editable AVI/MPEG-2 Files from DVDs

[grif302]

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to easily produce a high quality avi file in a codec supported by both Adobe Premiere and Sonic's MyDVD?

I want to edit a DVD disc and burn the edited version. I copied the DVD onto my hard drive using DVD Decrypter (IFO Mode) and encoded it to a .avi format with a XviD (MPEG-4) codec using AutoGK 1.95. The quality of the file is excellent when played on my PC under Windows XP MCE.

However, neither Adobe Premiere 6.0 nor Sonic's MyDVD Studio Deluxe 6 support the XviD codec. Although AutoGK is an outstanding encoder, Premier and MyDVD support is apparently limited to MPEG-2 codecs.

The trial version of DVD-to-AVI, Microsoft Video 1 codec, produces a highly pixilated file. Premier and MyDVD can read the file, but the quality is too poor to be edited. I have no assurance that the retail version of DVD-to-AVI would improve quality.

DVD2AVI produces a .d2v file, which Premiere and MyDVD don't support. Attempts to use CCE 2.5 and TMPGEnc have not been successful. Neither will read a d2v file.

DVD-to-MPEG produces a pretty good file which can be read by MyDVD, but not by Premiere. I have heard that Premiere prefers avi files and seems to discriminate against mpg.

[ultimatebilly]

Hi, and welcome to the doom9-board!
DVD2AVI produces a .d2v file, which Premiere and MyDVD don't support. Attempts to use CCE 2.5 and TMPGEnc have not been successful. Neither will read a d2v file.
A .d2v-file is only a index-file with information about every frame of the video.
You can use it to frameserve the video with avisynth.
In case you don't know:
frameserving with avisynth means that the video is parsed by avisynth and a raw video stream is sent to the application.
I don't know if premiere supports avisynth (.avs) files, but even if it doesn't you can still try with makeavis, it is a part of ffdshow, and will wrap the .avs in a fake avi, which is supported by much more applications.
To find more information about frameserving with avisynth, browse the excellent guides-section of the main page.

To use your xvid directly:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=94876&highlight=premiere+xvid
Normally every VfW-Codec can be used in Premiere...

Hope this helps!

Have fun!

[grif302]

Ultimatebilly:

Thank you very much for the help. I'm having fun alright, and getting a great education in the process thanks to you and the Doom9 Forum

Grif

[Mug Funky]

one thing about premiere (pro) and mpeg-2 - it does indeed behave better on avi. there's problems with mpeg stream-order vs playback order. what this means is you can edit however you like, but it's no guarantee that when you export you'll get the same frames. you'll probably be out by 2 randomly.

however, DVD2AVI (now superceded by DGindex) and avisynth give a way around this - premiere has an avs input plugin that's available for free download (search... i keep forgetting the link).

premiere will actually handle the avs files better than it handles mpeg-2, even though ultimately it's the same video being edited. another advantage is you have access to all kinds of high quality filters and effects via avisynth. a favourite of mine is on-the-fly NTSC to PAL conversion.