Dvd -> Fcp ?

[LJ]

All I want to do is capture small clips from DVDs into my NLE (Final Cut Pro), with no conversion loss from original if possible. Ripping works fine, DVD2AVI works, but with undesirable (for me) compression. FCP will capture miniDV from camera or deck, or QuickTime, or AVI. But it won't read AVI resulting from DVD2AVI (nor will it read VOB).

I apologize if I've missed an obvious guideline. Any tips would be welcome.

[killingspree]

want to try to use avisynth (www.avisynth.org) for this... it will creat a frameserver so you won't have to do any conversation.
the only question is if your program supports .avs files (or if you can force it to accept them, since virtually any program that can read avis can also use avs files)
if you need any help using or installing avisynth you find quite comprehensive documents at their webpage aswell as in the doom9 guides section!
regards
steVe

[LJ]

Thank you for the tip. Avisynth docs were most instructive, and gave me ideas on how to proceed. Can't use Avisynth because of details I failed to mention in first post.

Ripping worked fine on my WinXP machine, but FinalCut runs only on my powermac OS-X machine. Avisynth scripts run with a special dll file in Windows directory - not OSX compatible, of course. But made me think. The essential problem is just demuxing and decoding the .vob files, not transcoding.

Turns out Apple just introduced QuickTime 6 MPEG-2 Playback for OS-X. It allows playback of .mpg, .mpeg, .vob, .vro, .m2v, .m2a and .m2s files. So, bought the extension ($20), transferred a ripped .vob, and watched first 90 sec of video in FCP. Then it stops. And no audio.

Ok. Their new playback extesion does not play AC3 audio. Says so right at the end of the FAQ in small print. It does read MPEG3 program streams (muxed), so all I have to do is transcode the audio from AC3 to something else and recombine the stream with a common timeline...

And then I have to figure out why it only played 90 sec of video. But there are more tools to play with on this site...

[killingspree]

ok... well i can't help you any further since i do not have any knowledge of Macs in general. all i've ever done on a mac was write emails and texts.
regards
steVe