Hey there!
I got the G4 recently and have adobe premier 6.5 on it for editing on the road. I can capture from my camera with no problem but am having hell getting footage in the the editing program from a dvd. Does anyone know how to import dvd footage into a mac?
thanks

Adobe stopped development of Premiere for the Mac quite some time ago. I used it for awhile under MacOS 9 but that was maybe 5 years ago. Did they ever develop a version for OSX? I don't think they did, but could be wrong...

I don't think you'll find a lot of other Mac Premiere users here unfortunately. But the G4 iBook should work fine under Final Cut Pro 4 and 5. I cut a pretty big project with FCP 4.5 last year on my 1ghz PowerBook G4.

Thanks Boyd! I will be installing FCP instead. Funny thing is that the adobe premier was working fine with my Sony HDR FX1 (importing from dv), but I don't get why it wouldn't take in already finished dvd's (footage I have done earlier).

Adobe stopped development of Premiere for the Mac quite some time ago. I used it for awhile under MacOS 9 but that was maybe 5 years ago. Did they ever develop a version for OSX? I don't think they did, but could be wrong...



If I'm not mistaken, I think version 6.5 was probably the end-run for Mac development and support for Premiere. There was a Mac version when it was orginally introduced, but some of the features for 6.5 were Windows only, and in a sense, Mac users were getting kind of a 'hobbled' product. The introduction or enhancements of other features and products in the Final Cut family made the 'hobbled' features null and void, so I suppose Adobe didn't see much sense in continuing the development of Premeire for Mac. (I must note that if I was cutting on a PC rather than a Mac, I would likely be using Premeire as I find it to be really nice software - IMHO)

As far as capturing from a DVD - that is a little more complicated - but easy to rectify. Capturing footage from a DVD is not the same as capturing from a camcorder. A DVD is encoded by storing the audio and video files separately (in TOS folders?). The reasons for this are not exactly clear - but the two most sensible ones that are generally accepted is because:

1) this format made the DVD's more complicated to decrypt - and thereby more difficult to pirate...a strategy that may have been effective for all of 40 seconds.

2.) this enables a multiple array of audio options (such as alternate languages) without the need for multiple video tracks - thereby conserving disc space while adding nice options.

The retreive the footage from the DVD's generally requires the use of an application that can reunite the appropriate audio tracks with the video tracks and then exporting it to the desired format.

There are a number of freeware and shareware applications that will do this quite effectively....Mac the Ripper comes quickly to mind, and I would think that a check on versiontracker would give some good results.

There are also a couple of boxed retail apps that will do the job very nicely (if you want to pay the price for them). Cinematize 2 as well as Roxio Popcorn (I believe currently bundled with the current version of Toast) are easy to find at software dealers that stock Mac apps.

Many of these apps will let you choose just the scenese you want to extract along with your language option of choice (from choices available on the DVD) and allow you to export to a full quality dv stream which you can drag into your NLE and edit. (Note that although it is converted to a full quality dv stream, it is still going to only be the compressed resolution available from the mpeg2 DVD codec)

One final note: These applications are currently on the fence in regards to their legality. On one side, the 'industry' states that such software is illegal in that it is designed to decrypt 'protected' DVD technology. On the other side, it is considered 'fair-use' to have the ability to back-up privately owned discs for personal use, or to have control of personal or non-copywritten DVD content.

Hope this helps.
That's my 1 cent (undercutting the competition)
-Jon

Thanks Boyd! I will be installing FCP instead. Funny thing is that the adobe premier was working fine with my Sony HDR FX1 (importing from dv), but I don't get why it wouldn't take in already finished dvd's (footage I have done earlier).

Because HDV cameras and finished DVD have different formats. You have to convert the DVD into someing editable...VOBs aren't. MPEG streamclip is the extractor of choice.

thanks guys! that was really informative!
But i have to admit that i am a little unsure of what to do.
Should i get a program onto the computer that burns off my own dvd's into another format that I should then capture into Adobe premier?
Or, should I just install FCP and hope I can capture without the need of such a program.
thanks again and forgive my confusion