Loading a video from DVD
 

I figure there may be a simple answer to this but so far it hasn't hit me. I have a engagement story highlight video created using an inexpensive Pinnacle system (don't know that that's important), and created as a dvd with no menus. I want to be able to pull this into Vegas so that I can chop it up and use portions in a new video I'm doing for a rehearsal dinner. The content is all original so there's no copyright woes.

I've looked at the DVD's file structure... there's noting as simple as a mpg2 file on there that I can copy to my VEGAS editing computer. I looked at import, but there doesn't seem to be a file that is recognized.

I know I could play the dvd on a dvd player and capture to my system through my A/D converter, but I don't want to leave the digital domain if I can help it.

Anybody out there done this before... am I missing something really obvious??

Chris

Use a DVD ripper, followed by DGIndex

Thanks Emre.... I'll give it a "rip".....

Oooo... sorry for that..... LOL

Chris

From a previous experience trying to edit some video from one of them DVD camcorders...

All that conversion and re-encoding to something your NLE can edit--will take a bunch of time depending on your computer and amount of footage to be processed.

You might just hook the output of the DVD player into your DV camcorder and do a A-D conversion in real time.

Yeah, there might be some quality degradation--but it should be "good enough".

If you have at least Vegas 6.0c (it's currently at 6.0d), it's simply File - Import - DVD Camcorder disc.

Mike

Emre, is there a plug-in to import avs files into Vegas? I've tried Debugmode frameserving, but it wouldn't work.

(www.debugmode.com)

I personally would not encode a DVD rip through DGIndex. I would create a D2V file and run that through VirtualDubMod.

All in all, I'm trying to avoid having to do any encoding of any kind. I use to be able to edit DVD's directly with Premiere through an AVS plugin, but now that I've done the switch, the plugin I mentioned doesn't work for me.

The Pinnacle file created is just a .vob file, that can be converted to .avi type file with free or commercially available transcoding software. Search on Google for vob to avi file conversion programs. I say .avi because it will be easier to edit in than an .mpg file.

With Vegas 6 just copy the .vob files from the dvd and then drag them into the timeline.

it may be a little slow and playback won't be too great but its fine for a rough cut then render out to an intermediate file for the final cut

Editing directly with vob's is not at all frame accurate. At least from my experience.

You can get them on the timeline and then render out to AVI for happier editing.

But depending on what you ultimately want to do with them, it might not be necessary. I recently pulled stuff off an old DVD I did with the intention of creating 320x240 WMV files; there was no need to go to anything else for that.

Yeah true, but its good enough to grab a rough cut without wasteing time converting the whole vob file :)

Oh yeah and Vegas will only see the audio if its PCM. if its AC3 or something else you'd need to convert the audio first :)

Roger: I have not been able to import AVS files into Vegas; I just installed Debugmode to try.

After my experience with lossless codecs, I would shy away from using frameserved on the timeline; it would bogs things down (at least on my 3GHz Pentium). I only use DV now. I know it is lossy, but I think one generation isn't going to kill me.

No longer true as of Vegas 6.0c.

Oh cool, i must get the update then :)

What good will that do if you *think* you're making a cut at frame 204, but in reality, it's 206? Again, I don't know how well Vegas handles it, but when I was on premiere.......fugetaboutit.

I've never found it usefull to converting vob files, which is why I always frameserved. This is of course using Premiere. That is one aspect of Premiere I REALLY miss.

My experience with frameservingg has been nothing but great using avisynth and DGIndex. This is of course using Premiere 6.5 and Pro. Spot on accuracy and absolutely no boggyness on my 1GHz machine. I loved it and I miss it. When working with 29.97 DVD's I always frameserve to premiere and edit with it.

huffYUV is my second choice and DV is my third =). I've never had a problem editing with lossless codecs.