Editing AotC with MPEG Video Wizard

[triad3204]

Quick description of my process:

(1) Grabbed the VOB files from ATTACK OF THE CLONES using SmartRipper. Specifically I grabbed Title 5 (the movie itself), Angle 1 (to eliminate the alternate versions of the title scroll). I used Stream Processing to drop everything except the video [0xE0], 6ch English soundtrack [0x80], and the English subtitles [0x20, 0x21, 0x24].

(2) I used the resulting VOB files as an input source in MPEG Video Wizard and created project files for each VOB file editing out the footage I wanted to remove from the film.

(3) I then export the project file from MPEG Video Wizard to a new MPEG-2 file.

The problem I'm having is with the VOB file VTS_05_01.VOB and the resulting project file.

When I preview the project in MPEG Video Wizard, everything appears normal. But no matter what I do, when I export the file it skips from approximately 04:52 to the end of my very first edit (which is at 06:09 on my timeline).

A few more points of reference:

(1) I haven't had any problems with the other VOB and/or project files. They export just fine, AFAICT.

(1) I've tried re-ripping the VOB file with both SmartRipper and DVD DeCrypter. The problem repeats.

(2) I've tried redoing the project file completely from scratch (on the theory that one of my markers may have become corrupted). The problem still exists.

(3) I've also discovered that if I move up and down the Input window while viewing the source VOB file, I get other weird artifacts: The soundtrack and video will unsynch. In some cases, the video seems to unsynch from the timeline -- so that if I go in reverse I see one set of images, and if I reverse direction it jumps to a later point in the movie.

(4) I also took the ripped VOB file, ran it through DGMPGDEC, and then opened it up in VirtualDub through AviSynth. VirtualDub can read the VOB just fine, so it's not native to the VOB.

(5) Then, just to double-check one more thing, I opened up a new project file, dumped the whole VOB into the project file, and then exported that. It exported just fine.

What makes this particularly frustrating is that this VOB is, in fact, the one I made the fewest and simplest changes to: All I did was cut out a couple of shots. On the other VOB files I reordered scenes, pulled footage in from the deleted scenes, re-edited an entire sequence with a new soundtrack, and added effects. Those all work fine, but this one is giving me nothing but grief.

Okay, just had another thought: I took the VOB, dumped it into a new project file, and then split the clip into three parts without actually editting anything out. Now the audio skips ahead about 4 minutes into the film and then the video catches up by skipping ahead about 60 seconds later.

My best guess at this point is that even though I've only ripped Angle 1, there's still some marker that MPEG Video Wizard is picking up. As a result, MPEG Video Wizard gets confused about where it's pulling video and audio information from in the VOB file. But I don't know if there's anything I can do about it. Is there?

Anybody have any suggestions?

The only thing I haven't tried is re-ripping the VOB file without limiting it to a single angle and then laboriously going in and removing all those half second intercuts between the different title scrolls. (For those who don't know: For some reason, LucasFilms decided that instead of having the English title scroll and then the Spanish title scroll and then the French title scroll -- at least, I think those are the three languages -- they'd have a half second of the English title scroll, a half second of the Spanish title scroll, a half second of the French title scroll, and then back to the English title scroll. So if you play back the VOB without the IFO info, you get this constant intercutting.) But not only is that a lot of work, it also results in the audio being mistimed -- which would create a major headache.

Justin Bacon
[mailto link edited]

[ammck55]

Justin--I don't have enough experience with NLE's to help you out much, so if you don't receive some help here in the next 24 hours, I'll move this thread.

I've edited your embedded mailto link because it's not in the best interests of group discussion. Any help or advice you receive from Doom9 members deserves to be out in the open where we can all profit and learn from such.

ammck55

[Edit] I neglected to welcome you to the forum, but honestly, the technical nature of your first post would not indicate pure Newbie status. :) You've most certainly brought a nice level of skill with you; look around and dish out some help when you can!

Oh yes, welcome to the forum!

[triad3204]

Originally posted by ammck55
[Edit] I neglected to welcome you to the forum, but honestly, the technical nature of your first post would not indicate pure Newbie status. :) You've most certainly brought a nice level of skill with you; look around and dish out some help when you can!

Thank you for the compliment. Although I've got a little bit of experience with basic audio editing, I've honestly only been working with video for about two weeks now. And I'm a little bit in over my head. ;)

Justin Bacon

[triad3204]

Okay, here's how I worked around this problem:

(1) As I mentioned in my original post, if I dumped the VOB into MPEG Video Wizard and then exported it without making any changes to the project, it would export an A-OK MPEG that would play without any problems in any of my media players.

(2) "Ah, ha!" I thought. Let's just use that outputted MPEG as an input back into MPEG Video Wizard: MPEG Video Wizard doesn't re-encode, so I'm not losing any quality.

(3) At first I thought I'd be able to simply replace the original VOB file with the new outputted MPEG file. That didn't work, though, because whatever timers MPEG Video Wizard was mis-reading in the original file had messed up all the markers in my project file.

(4) So I re-did all my edits in a new project file.

(5) This *almost* worked. For some reason MPEG Video Wizard was now mis-reading the length of the new MPEG file, so it was trimming off the end of the file. Crap.

(6) But, wait! I've got the original VOB file right over here, and MPEG Video Wizard didn't have any problems with that section of the original file. So I went back to the original VOB and used it as an input for the missing section of the movie.

(7) I then output the new project file into a new MPEG file and -- ta da! -- it worked just fine.

Then I demuxed the soundtrack to six mono WAV files for editing, but that's a tale for another day.

Justin Bacon
triad3204@aol.com

[Mythkiller]

Hi Justin.

You have no idea how glad I am to have found your thread. I came to this forum for sole purpose of learning how to make an extended edit of AOTC. I'm hoping to add the 3 Naboo scenes back in, and maybe also insert the missing music into the Geonosis arena sequence. I'm guessing you probably did the same, as well as maybe cut out some of the schmaltzy romance? :) Anyway, reading that you had little experience gives me lots of faith that I can pull this off. My first cry for help was at videohelp.com...

http://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1270040#1270040

I think I'll try to follow your process, because it sounds like you've gotten good results. So, I might come here and pick your brain along the way if you'd be so kind to allow me to.

Just 2 questions for now:

Did you do all your video editing with MPEG Video Wizard or did you use another (like Sony Vegas)? Also, did you have to do any extra work with the forced subtitles (the ones that translate alien dialogue) or did they remain untouched after the edit?

Much thanks in advance,
~Jim

[triad3204]

Originally posted by Mythkiller
You have no idea how glad I am to have found your thread. I came to this forum for sole purpose of learning how to make an extended edit of AOTC. I'm hoping to add the 3 Naboo scenes back in, and maybe also insert the missing music into the Geonosis arena sequence. I'm guessing you probably did the same, as well as maybe cut out some of the schmaltzy romance? :)

Adding the Naboo scenes back in doesn't work as well as you think it will. Lucas was right to cut them: They do, in fact, kill the pace of the movie dead as a doornail.

To fix the romance, you don't want to cut the schmaltzy elements. What you want to focus on is Anakin's tantrum early in the movie (the scene where Amidala is packing her bags). If you cut out just the tantrum in that sequence you'll find that the entire romance suddenly flows: The problem in the original movie is that every other conversation between Anakin and Amidala makes Anakin look like a complete psychopath -- leaving you scratching your head when Amidala suddenly falls for him. By cutting that one tantrum, Anakin's character flaws are subtler and don't really start cropping up until after Amidala is already clearly infatuated with him.

Adding Williams' original score back into the arena sequence is essentially impossible, I'm afraid. The problem is that there's no easy way to separate the music from the sound effects and dialogue: The best you can do is to paste the original score over the existing track -- which just gives you discord. You can get a slightly better result by muting everything around the sound effects/dialogue -- but there's sound effects essentially through the entire battle sequence, so you're not gaining much (and probably just drawing attention to your efforts).

I sliced out the entire C-3PO "switchin' heads" sequence from the movie (and the movie benefits tremendously for it), but even that was very difficult to do in a seamless fashion. (The pace of the battle no longer works quite right, so you have to re-arrange a few other pieces. And then do A LOT of audio editing to get something that sounds seamless.)

Also: Watch out for the places where Lucas ruins performances by letting a shot linger a little too longer. They can be a pain to remove cleanly, but you can get dramatic improvement by just cutting a little bit of footage.

For example, the following sequence:

OBI-WAN: Because of your mother...?
ANAKIN: I don't know why I can't stop dreaming about her.

In the film as shown you get a shot of Obi-Wan saying his line; then you cut to Anakin who pauses, turns his had, nods awkwardly, and then pauses again before actually saying his line. The result looks like an entirely unnatural performance on they part of Hayden Christensen.

But take a closer look: The fault in that scene isn't Christensen. It's Lucas' editing. I am convinced that that weird, awkward nod was performed after Obi-Wan's line: It was performed *during* Obi-Wan's line. And if you can imagine it that way, you'll discover that the awkward nod is, in fact, a perfectly natural reaction. You'll want to cut that nod back out, and restore Christensen's performance.

You'll find little bits like this scattered throughout the film; particularly during the first half.

Did you do all your video editing with MPEG Video Wizard or did you use another (like Sony Vegas)? Also, did you have to do any extra work with the forced subtitles (the ones that translate alien dialogue) or did they remain untouched after the edit?

I did all my video editing in MPEG Video Wizard, and it worked really well. The biggest advantage is that you're not converting the video format, so you're not losing any quality.

But you're going to find yourself running into another problem (assuming you're trying to keep your 5.1 sound track): If you add a transition anywhere in the film, MPEG Video Wizard will no longer save an AC-3 audio stream. The only way to solve this problem involves demuxing the audio streams. In brief:

1. Export your project the way you want it to PROJECT.MPG.
2. Now, go in and mute the audio on all the transitions.
3. Export the project to a AUDIO.MPG.
4. Demux the audio from both PROJECT.MPG (which will get you an *.mpa file) and AUDIO.MPG (which will get you an *.ac3 file).
5. Use HeadAC3e on the *.ac3 file to get six WAV files: One for each of the six channels.
6. Use a sound editor (I used Sound Forge) to take the sections of transition audio from the *.mpa file and integrate it back into each of the six WAV files.
7. Take the six WAV files and re-encode them as 5.1 AC-3 file. (I used Sony Vegas for this step, because that program has.)
8. Go back to MPEG Video Wizard and open up your project file: You can now mute the audio from the video track entirely, put your AC-3 track in as an audio track, and export the whole thing to your FINAL PROJECT.MPG file.

I deliberately stripped the subtitles entirely. My primary reason is that I'm not just editing the film, I'm also redubbing Jar-Jar's voice -- so I would have needed to go in an add subtitles for that in any case. I figured it would be easier to just do all the subtitles from scratch, rather than trying to integrate subtitle streams. Since I'm going to be doing the subtitles tomorrow, we'll have to see how that goes for me. ;)

Something else to watch out for: When using DVD Decrypter or SmartRipper, make sure you set "no file splitting" as an option. Otherwise you'll find yourself with ragged edges at the end of every file which are going to be a huge pain to deal with. (I made this mistake myself, and the result was a painfully convuluted correction.)

Justin Bacon
triad3204@aol.com

[Mythkiller]

Hey Justin. Thank you so much for all of the advice. :D

I agree 100% about Anakin's little tantrum. I did not originally intend to *cut* anything out of the film, but I might be bold enough to give this a try. It's a simple 28 second cut.

I too have noticed the "lingering", especially in the scene after Anakin's dream on Naboo, where Padme just stares at him with a seemingly cold look. And while you may be right about the deleted Naboo scenes, I sorta want to see for myself how they flow. For me, it's the driving force behind this project. I REALLY like these scenes, as they seem to be some of the only moments where the two knuckleheads have any real chemistry. It's the missing courtship. AND I like how Padme expresses her desire to have a family (a little echo of Luke & Leia's "conceptual presence" in the film). I could be wrong... but I'd still like to try it.

As for the Arena music, I just wanted to clarify that I mean to add the track during the 3 minute period where *no* music is playing at all (when Poggle says "Let the executions begin" up until Anakin tames the wild beast). That whole missing bit of music *does* exist on the soundtrack CD. I think that Lucas tweaked this f/x sequence so much after Williams scored it, that it was a bit too long for his existing music. Instead of adjusting the score for the time change, they just cut it out completely. But I think I could make a skillfull insertion. So... is it still impossible for me to put it back in? Would there still be discord or not, since I'm not adding music over music? If it is possible, would I need to convert the 3 minute wav to ac3?

BTW, I also appreciate the tip about DVD Decrypter. I definitely have to retry this with the "no file-splitting" option, because I think I have the exact problem you describe (and then some). I used Womble to create a test Mpeg of the film before any editing, and the sound is a few seconds out of sync. AND there is tiny (but noticable) pause in the spots where the VOBs were patched together. Is that what you meant by "ragged edges"?

As for the subtitles, I sort of figured they would disappear and need to be retyped and inserted. I have no idea how to do this. Good luck with the process, and please let me know how it goes...

Thanks again.
~Jim