I want to be able to transfer 10 minutes from a DVD movie I recently bought to FCP4 so I can manipulate it and edit it as I like. It is not for commercial use but for my own enjoyment. How can I do that? Any help is appreciated. I have FCP4.0.2 & OSX 10.2.6 & DVD Studio Pro 2.0.0
Hey - Never used one of these forums before so bear with me. I have performed exactly what you wanted last year for a presentation on a film for my course. At the time I was using FCpro 3 (OS9) with a MatroxRTmac capture card, I set the capture settings in Final Cut to capture from the Matrox S-Video and stereo inputs (though you could use the the conponent vid input). I then connected the DVD player DIRECTLY to the Matrox break out box (no monitor in between) using an S-Video cable and stereo cables. I cycled the DVD to the section I wished to copy, started capture now in Final Cut and pressed play on the DVD player. The DVD video stream then captured directly into Final Cut. I saved the captured stream and placed it into the timeline. I could now manipulate and edit it as I wished. Obviously the quality depends on the codec you use to capture with. Uncompressed 8-bit will be alot better than DV but a bit of over kill, but you get the point. I am now using FCpro 4 (OSX Panther) on a G5 and I haven't tried anything similar on this set up, but I see no reason why this would not work with an analog to digital converter fire wire capture device such as a FORMAC STUDIO TVR or a Maxtor Directors Cut Take 2 maybe even an el-gato EYE TV capturing into Final Cut Pro 4 or saving as Quick Time File (Unless protection measures are in place on these machines). Or alternatively find a friend with a similar set up to the one mentioned above and use his machine to capture the footage and then burn it to CD and import on your computer into FinalCutpro4. If you can find some way of getting the footage you want onto a dv tape then obviously you can capture it into your machine using a DV vid camera. Or you could try and find a mate with one of the new Philips/Sony DVD players which have I-Link (fire wire) outputs. Sorry about the length of posting but I thought it better to try an explain clearly. Good Luck.