Editing (for beginners)

[mr.webb]

Hi, a real newby question...
I'll try to be as brief as possible
I have scoured the known universe for answers to this question without success....

I have some DVD music videos that I want to rip to the hard drive and then edit (to the extent of splitting up, trimming and re-arranging the songs. I also want to use transition effects and titles etc using story-board and time-line)
I then want to convert the result to DivX5 avi files using the Gordian Knot suite of apps and then burn to CD

I have been using WinDVD Creator for editing, because this program allows direct editing of the VOB files that have been ripped to my hard drive.
However if I were to edit using a different format, say AVI or MPG, I would have a wider choice of editors. Something that would allow for (say) separate editing of the audio stream for example.

So the the BIG QUESTION....

Because I want to stop the quality of the video from being degraded too much, is it better to directly edit the VOB files as I have been doing, or have I got it all wrong. Should I be transcoding the VOBs to something else like AVIs or MPGs before editing, or directly rip the DVD to my hard drive using another format?
And if so what program should I use to do this, and to later (re)transcode for compatability with Gordian Knot apps.
(Remembering that I want to use Gordian Knot to produce DivX5 AVIs to burn to CD.)

Because I am eternally curious, can you give any reasons for your verdict?

Many thanks
Regards
John Webb
mr.webb@xtra.co.nz

[killingspree]

well i for myself would probably use avisynth for such a task.
But the big question will be how the audio is handled... i mean i don't know how cutting and rearranging will affect the audio.

anyway another method would be to encode the music clips seperately in gknot at a certain bitrate you want and then add them up in vdub(mod) the interims could be created with avisynth. you'd have to do them manually though (fade in and out etc) this will of course again pose the problem of size predictability...

one way or the other - it's going to be quite a lot of work, this much i can say for sure.

perhaps you also want to take a look at adobe premiere, which is not free of course.

hope this helps

regards
steVe

[mr.webb]

Thanks, killingspree - gee~! where did you get that name??

"well i for myself would probably use avisynth for such a task"
Which task? Editing, transcoding? Sorry if I appear dumb.

I have heard that premier is great, but does not open VOB files.
Can you confirm that?

Regards
John

[Jazz]

You can use Avisynth to make your VOBs appear like AVIs to any editor that doesn't read VOBs directly. This is part of a process called "frameserving" - read around in the Avisynth section here or on http://www.avisynth.org/index.php?page=Section+2%3A+AviSynth+and+frameserving#q2.10 to get started.

[killingspree]

you can do all kind of jobs with avisynth (it is like virtualdub in some ways only on a scripting basis - sounds complicated but it isn't!!)
you can
trim
crop
resize
add segments to one large file
mux
smoothen/soften
sharpen
do fade ins/ outs
display custom text (like the titles you want) on a black screen
etc etc

only problem i know is that afaik it is not able to handle the audio directly from the vob file... therrefore you'll have to extract and remux it in avisynth and then demux it again for encoding. for video encoding you can laod the script into virtualdub(mod)

hope this helps
regards
steVe

PS: wow i've crossed the 400 posts mark :-P

[mr.webb]

Thanks for the help, guys.
It looks like AVISynth is what I need.
I've downloaded it, but will have to wait until the weekend to play with it

Regards
John

[mr.webb]

It's hard to believe sometimes that I am a qualified computer technician, and with IT qualifications as well.
Maybe my common-sense gene is missing or defective.

OK -
I have downloaded and installed the latest AVISynth
Downloaded and installed MPEGDecoder.dll for AviSynth By Nic
Quote: This DLL lets you load VOB/MPEG-2 ES,PS,TS/MPEG-1 files directly into Avisynth.

I have ripped the VOB to my hard drive.

I have written a script and renamed it VOB.avs like this...

LoadPlugin("D:\Audio\AviSynth2\plugins\MPEGDecoder.dll")
MPEGSource("G:\THE_FOUR_SEASONS\VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_1.vob")



PROBLEM.....

I can open the VOB.avs file in VDub and it plays OK (except no audio)
This seems to suggest that AVISynth is working OK and that the MPEGDecoder.dll is loading.
However I cannot load VOB.avs into either Ulead MediaStudio 6.5 or WinDVD Creator, (which is the whole point of this exercise)

Both editor programs claim that they can load AVI files but neither will load AVS files, or at least not this one.

I read somewhere a bit later on that Ulead editors require a proggy called Link2 from Videotools in order to accept AVISynth AVS files.
Tried it but with no success. The same site also said that Premier needed a similar sort of file. !!!!!!!!

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelp. Where do I go from here.

Regards
John

[hakko504]

As you say, AviSynth seems to be working OK. I don't really have any experience with the programs you mention, but the usual solution in cases like this is to first try adding ConverttoRGB() or even ConverttoRGB24() to the script and see what happens. Check out the AviSynth FAQ (http://www.avisynth.org). There a couple of solutions for this kind of problems exists, like trying vfapi (which you'll find on Doom9's download page (http://www.doom9.org)) instead of Link.

[mr.webb]

Yes, vfapi and premier seem to do it all for me.
AVISynth just did not work for me the way vfapi does

Thanks to all
Regards
John Webb
mr.webb@xtra.co.nz

[lamer_de]

If you have lots of HDD Space, you could create a Huffyuff/wav avi and load that into premiere. I'm not sure how Premiere/avisynth can handle the audio if you mix the clips wildly. But maybe it can and my suggestion is superfluous.

CU,
lamer_de