Need NLE advice

[Morlock]

I have zero NLE experience and I need some advice. I have pretty specific needs so I figure I should ask folks who know the apps rather than play around forever with all of them first.

I only want to use an NLE to play with the DVDs I have (Hollywood movies, concert DVDs, etc.). I want to be able take a demuxed VOB and convert it to whatever format and import it to my NLE, then cut it with frame-accuracy. I want to join clips too. Finally, I want to be able to remux it to a VOB again but my guess is that a secondary app can do this.

That's pretty much it; I just want frame-accuracy. Other than that, it comes down to ease of use, cost, quality of support, resource demands, etc.

edit: oh, and I need to be able to do "frame-accurate" audio cutting and joining too.

[rfmmars]

http://site.magix.net/index.php?18200

The above program will do it all plus ties into Virtualdub(xxx)'s frameserveing directly or at Amazon.com you can get the older version for $29.95 and a $20.00 rebate, but you have to Demux with DGindex.

richard
photorecall.net

[theReal]

Every real NLE program has frame accuracy. If it doesn't, then it's not an editing suite, it's bulls*** :D

[dennisparrott]

Somewhere I read a list of NLE packages that would directly import a VOB. They seemed a little pricey for a hobbyist ($300+).

I have had some success using DVD2AVI to convert VOBs into DivX format files that I imported into Sony Vegas Movie Studio ($99). Vegas MS comes with a version of their high-end DVD Architect program which is MUCH better than the typical consumer-grade DVD making packages. It is really flexible which is great if you want to do fancier stuff but it costs you some time up front to really learn the package.

I started a thread about editable codecs so I could do just what you're talking about in the General forum. Try this link:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?threadid=90716&goto=newpost

I really like Vegas MS; the price was reasonable, it does a lot, it supports multiple audio and video tracks for editing, the DVD Architect package provides more power than the other consumer-grade choices...

hth,

dennis

[Morlock]

Thanks Dennis. As often as VV is mentioned, I didn't expect it to cost on a hundred bucks. (edit: ah, okay, I see from that link it's a different Vegas).

Isn't divx a compressed format? If so, wouldn't it be better to convert the VOBs to .avi or something, then import to VV? I'm so clueless about all this...

[smok3]

the easiest thing would probably be to use

1. dvdshrink to cut of the pieces of dvd you will use for editing,
2. after that you convert those to some uncompressed (huffyuv) avi(s) - you can use usual tools found on doom9.org for that -
3. and use any editing app after that..., (i used premiere and liquid edition 5.5 mostly)
4. then you need dvd encoding/authoring package of some sort..... (both editors i mentioned do have built in things like 'burn timeline to dvd'.)

[dennisparrott]

Originally posted by Morlock
Thanks Dennis. As often as VV is mentioned, I didn't expect it to cost on a hundred bucks. (edit: ah, okay, I see from that link it's a different Vegas).

Isn't divx a compressed format? If so, wouldn't it be better to convert the VOBs to .avi or something, then import to VV? I'm so clueless about all this...

Sony rebranded the "Movie Studio" product (which was "Video Factory" when owned by Sonic Foundry...) as "Vegas Movie Studio". The interfaces are remarkably similar; full Vegas has a lot of features for handling HD digicams and other pro-level stuff. The tool works fine and its support for multiple video and audio tracks is pretty cool.

What really made Vegas Movie Studio worth my $$$ to upgrade was the fact that the DVD authoring application offers more flexibility than the other consumer-ish packages. I was digitizing some old 8mm movies from tape and needed 10 menu items (ptrs to clips to watch) on a single page. I was unable to get MyDVD or Roxio to do that unless I added extra pages. DVD Architect allowed me to create a classy looking single page with a short MPEG clip background and 10 text items to go to the clips. I think it is worth the $100...

As for DivX being compressed, yes I realized that. I was looking for SOMETHING ANYTHING that would "work" and it did which proved to me that I could do what I wanted to do. The search is on now for better codecs that play with Vegas Movie Studio.

Cinepak was going to take too long. Uncompressed (RGB) was taking too much storage to contain. There were others that merely took too long to do... Others would not load into Vegas Movie Studio. (my notes are not complete here... I need to do some serious, organized testing.)

However, while searching for better codecs, I have 2 criteria:

1. it has to work within "reasonable" time constraints (a conversion time of 2 to 3 DAYS is unacceptable)

2. it can't require unreasonable amounts of disc storage to hold 2 hours of converted data. (there was one coded that was taking about 2GB for about a minute ten seconds of video... clearly unacceptable.)

Item 1 is going to be addressed by buying a 3+GHz P4 box with lots of memory.

Item 2 may eventually be addressed *best* by other codecs -- hopefully inexpensive ones but I am NOT holding my breath!

dennis

[dennisparrott]

Originally posted by smok3
the easiest thing would probably be to use

1. dvdshrink to cut of the pieces of dvd you will use for editing,
2. after that you convert those to some uncompressed (huffyuv) avi(s) - you can use usual tools found on doom9.org for that -
3. and use any editing app after that..., (i used premiere and liquid edition 5.5 mostly)
4. then you need dvd encoding/authoring package of some sort..... (both editors i mentioned do have built in things like 'burn timeline to dvd'.)

I wouldn't be so quick on item #3 (use any editing app...). I have had some codecs that were rejected as input in Vegas Movie Studio. Not sure why...

I am finding that the underlying complexity of the video software makes this field a "try it and see if you like it" sort of thing. It seems that there are things that will work for one person/system and not for others...

dennis

[ShawnFumo]

Just for curiosity, are you wanting to just make a "director's cut" type version of the movie with some scenes removed or moved around, or something like a music video? Because moving some scenes could probably be done with all free programs (though there'd be a pretty decent learning curve involved). But yeah, if you are doing a lot of real editing, a NLE becomes necessary.

If Huffyuv is still too big, you might be able to use avisynth to frameserve the mpeg2 directly into a NLE, but that depends on the program. I'm not so sure which ones support that.

Shawn

[dennisparrott]

Originally posted by ShawnFumo
Just for curiosity, are you wanting to just make a "director's cut" type version of the movie with some scenes removed or moved around, or something like a music video?



I'm not sure you were directing this at me, but.... My involvement with this topic got started because I had inadvertently wiped out the source I was using as a base for some DVDs I was making.

I had converted a VHS tape to digital using a Sony miniDV camera as a bridge, did some initial trimming and cleanup and then wrote an MPEG-2 file. That MPEG-2 file was being dropped into various DVD projects to experiment with DVD Architect so I could learn what I could do; chapters vs. set points and so on. Since all of my timing info (location of various pieces within the MPG file) was geared to that MPEG-2 file, I wanted to recover it from the DVD.

Prior to this, I had decided that I wanted to learn how to do this so that I could take other DVD-contained material and reconstruct that content in different ways; for instance, make a video available for use with WMP on my PocketPC...

So no, I wasn't looking to make "director's cuts" or music videos per se. But removing things like stupid ads were certainly on my mind!


Because moving some scenes could probably be done with all free programs (though there'd be a pretty decent learning curve involved). But yeah, if you are doing a lot of real editing, a NLE becomes necessary.

If Huffyuv is still too big, you might be able to use avisynth to frameserve the mpeg2 directly into a NLE, but that depends on the program. I'm not so sure which ones support that.

Shawn

There is another thread I was participating in where I got some advice about which codecs I ought to use if my intent was to re-edit something.

I have not tried HuffYUV but it can't be worse than the one codec I found (which I can't remember off the top of my head) that was spitting out 2GB/minute of video!! My feeling is that if it isn't bigger than 13GB/hour of video it is in the running since 13GB/hour is what I get from the miniDV camera. Anything that looks really good at less than 13GB/hour is just fine with me...

As for climbing the learning curve(s) of various bits of software, well, it is like this: if I need to know it so that I can make things happen, fine, if I can make it happen with what I already know, better.

dennis