Lossless DVD importing.
 

Does anyone know of a program that will copy DVDs without any loss. I have a bunch of projects that I have burned to DVD with Adobe Premier and now I need to get these projects back into my server for storage. All of the files on my DVDs are VOBs and A3C audio. Ideally, I would like the video and audio to be muxed together but if they are seperate that is not a problem. I just want zero to very little loss.

I did a search but there must have been 30 different programs suggested. I'm just in need of some suggestions of what is the best company or program to go with? Thanks.

Vegas does this,if you have it. There is also DVD Decrypter floating around. Totally lossless; they are rippers.

Avid Liquid and Pinnacle Studio (V.10+) edit MPEG natively, so should fit what you want.

If these are dvds you have authored and burnt yourself, there will be no copy protection so you can just do a direct file copy from the dvd to your hard drive. No quality loss.

If you want to be able to edit the video as an avi I have used a program called DVDx a while ago, not sure if it still exists though. There will be quality loss converting to avi, editing then recompressing the video for DVD.

HTH.

That is why Vegas, Liquid, and Studio are good solutions. All three edit MPEG natively in the timeline. Not sure about AC3 import though. I did something once, but forget how I got there.

If you just want an image of the DVD to make copies from then just use Nero and select image recorder as recorder. This will create an image file on your hard drive. You can then burn copies from this image.If you want to re author use DVDLab Pro, select the first VOB and it will import. You can then re author including AC3. If you want to edit from this point after DVDLab Pro has imported it will have created two files, a video and audio elementary stream( ac3 if that was the audio format) so you could use any of the consumer programs to edit ie Womble, Pinnacle Studio, Ulead Moviefactory, Premiere Elements etc.

Ron Evans

I'm not looking to do any re-editing in mpeg. Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I'll report back when I get everything going for anyone else.

Well it does appear that I might have to go back into my files and redo some things. Anyone have any suggestions on a good program for converting mpg back into avi?

Adobe doesn't seem to like mpg too well. My video on the display monitor is alittle jumpy. Should I ignore this and carry on?

Vegas Movie or Pinnacle Studio

Like I mentioned in my previous post the simpler consumer programs do a much better job. Most have trial versions that last for 30 days , let you edit, author a DVD,deal with AC3 audio and burn. Most also are less than $100 so are worth having around just for the situation you have described.
Ron Evans

MPEG in Premiere
 

True, Premiere is not very happy handling MPEG footage. I am just now editing some footage captured on a JVC Everio hard drive camcorder... it's a pain you know where.

First, the files have to be imported individually or in small groups (4-5 minutes combined length at the max), importing more than 4-5 minutes at a time will freeze the program. Then the footage has to be conformed, then you put it on the timeline and you have to render it or it will be jaggy/jumpy. And you better render after putting each clip on the timeline or the program will freeze again.

But in the end it all comes out OK, your picture will be not worse than the MPEG file itself.

I tried with both PPRO 1.5 and 2.0 with similar results, although 2.0 seems a bit more stable when handling MPEGs.

Here's a speculation: I tried using Windows Movie Maker to combine short MPEGs and export them as DV-AVI. Movie Maker basically acts the same way, I was only able to import a few MPEGs at a time or the program would freeze. So I think the problem lies not with PPRO but with the Windows AVI codec that does the decompressing.

I would appreciate if someone would correct me if I'm wrong.