DVD to Mac/Final Cut Friendly Format

[TurnX]

So for the TV show I am producing here at school we get a lot of music videos on DVDs. At home I am working on a PC but all the editing is done in our Mac suite with Final Cut Pro. I am at the point on my home PC where I have ripped the DVDs however I am having trouble deciding which format I should convert them to so that they will play/work well with Final Cut. I was thinking a mov container with H264 codec, but I am not aware of any software that can do that for me. Any help/comments would be appreciated.

[Blue_MiSfit]

You can use MPEG StreamClip to do the VOB -> MOV conversion.

My suggestion would be DV or PhotoJPEG at high quality settings, whichever your eyes prefer.

Apple's H.264 codec isn't too bad these days. However, it's an interframe codec, so editing it might be tricky with Final Cut. It will probably work, but I would stick with PhotoJPEG because it's intraframe only. It's also a lot faster than H.264 ;)

Also do be aware of the frame rate and field coding method used in both the DVD and your project. If you're splicing film content (24p, like most hollywood DVDs) into your project - the rest of the project should ideally also be 24p. If you're cutting a DV / HDV project at 60i, things will get sticky!

~MiSfit

[TurnX]

Thanks for the suggestion, worked great on both my PC and our editing Mac.

[Blue_MiSfit]

No problem :)

Good old MJPG really gets the job done, eh?

~MiSfit