I've got a question that seems to be quite simple, or even dumb, but all my searches in all kinds of forums, articles and guides didn't provide an answer to it (maybe because it's a "given" to someone who knows what they're doing?). Anyway, here it is - how do you turn a totally unprotected, 1hr-long home-made DVD into 1 big MPEG2 file without re-encoding/loosing quality? Is it possible at all? And if it is, can you make 1 huge MPEG2 files out of 2, without loosing sound quality, that can be read (and furthermore worked with) by Pinnacle Studio? The history of this is as follows: I had a home-video Hi8 collection, which was getting too old, so I borrowed a Hi8 VCR from a friend, DVD-Recorder from another, and just digitized all my videos in real-time on DVD-Rs, each 1 hr long (XP speed), no menus, nothing. I think, however, that the recorder automatically split each DVD into 5? 10? minute chapters, but I'm not sure about it. Hoping, that later, at my own pace, I can edit them and make them into nice DVDs with menus, effects etc., without much headache... How wrong was I!!! Here's what I tried to do after: 1. Import videos from DVDs to my PC, using a)Ulead Workshop b)SmartRipper c)Ulead MovieFactory 2. Work on them with Pinnacle Studio. Here's the problems I encountered: 1. Ulead soft when importing DVD video splits it into about 20 MPEG2s. 2. Pinnacle doesn't read Ulead's MPEG2s 3. Merging several MPEG2s with DVTool gives you a bigger MPEG2 with sound, but Pinnacle doesn't read it. 4. Merging several MPEG2s with TMPGEnc gives you a bigger MPEG2 that Pinnacle reads, but it doesn't have the sound (!), and Pinnacle hangs up when trying to "create a movie" from it, stumbling exactly at a point where initial MPEG2s were "glued" together. 5. Ripping with SmartRipper gives you VOBs, a huge m2v etc., that neither Ulead, nor Pinnacle want to deal with. Well, I'm wondering - isn't there a program that does a supposedly simple task - takes video from the DVD, and saves it as an MPEG2 on your hard drive?? As far as I understood from my research, a DVD actually IS an MPEG2, just with a shell (which is VOB? or m2v?), isn't it? In other words, my questions are: 1)Can I escape somehow getting multiple MPEG2s when importing from my DVDs (even if my suspicion is true, and the recorder split the videos into chapters)? 2)What program can do this importing without re-encoding (since common sense tells me that any "reprocessing" will affect the final result) and/or loosing the sound? 3)If none of the above is possible, and I'm doomed with multiple MPEG2s with sound problems, how can I possibly put them together nicely? Anyone, who cares to help me with this - tons of appreciation! PS I downloaded today a program called DVDx, haven't tried it yet, but it seems to be tailored for SVCD quality MPEG2s, with a bitrate of upto 2400 (which means re-encoding, doesn't it?), and I'm afraid, that even if I set the bitrate at 8000, it still will re-encode.
Most standalone recorders do in fact automaticlly insert chapter stops, don't know if this can be turned off before you start. If you have Nero 6 you might try Nero Vision Express. You can usually stack and merge all sorts of vid files with it. I imagine if it fits on a disc or you choose to save it to a file that it won't transcode it. Worth a shot.
Why not use Ulead VideoStudio or Adobe Premiere? These proggies can import VOB's directly and you can do all your effects with them as well. However, any time you add effects, it has to re-sample and thus your output (MPEG2)is never at the SAME quality as your inputted file. It can be very close though. Don't know why you said this. I don't use Pinnacle myself but a MPEG2 is the same no matter what proggy made it. Perhaps Pinnacle Studio doesn't read MPEG2's, period? Looking at the Pinnacle website, that's the case. As for doing menu's, I'm assuming you're talking about DVD menus. Just load up your favourite DVD authoring proggy (after outputting your MPEG2 with all the effects, etc) and you're done.
PaveID, I found your question looking for an answer to my question - which was almost identical. I too want to "reauthor" unprotected DVDs - but I didn't have the requirement to use Studio. I didn't find my answer here (of course), but did discover a feature of a product last night THAT I ALREADY HAVE and love and I think this might do the trick for you too. The product to use is TMPGEnc's DVD Author 1.5 - http://www.tmpgenc.com. They also have newer more advanced tools now, but as I've not tried them I can only speak for DVD Author for now. This tool create DVDs and menus and chapters and will allow for the sources to be unprotected .VOB files or even entire DVDs (direct from the disk). But what I discovered using it is that, at least if you do direct from disk, there is an option to "copy content to HDD for better performance." Having picked that option, to my surprise ('cause I was expecting to see a copy of the VOBs), the program created an MPEG file of my entire DVD - including sound. But there is an issue. It turns out the source DVD I was using was created on a setup DVD burner that did the sound in AC3 format. That audio is included in the MPEG file, but can't be played in the DVD Author Tool without buying an addition plug-in for AC3. However, if you just continue authoring and previewing without sound - the sound is still included in your output. Or I suppose you can just pay for the plug-in which I might end up doing if I get more projects like this to work on. I also tried using that MPEG file in Studio 9 and the results are not good. What whassup said about an MPEG being an MPEG seems like it should be correct, but the key to the statement was that he (or she) had not used Studio. Studio is very tempermental. It is my prefered tool if starting with DV video, but otherwise it's a total crapshoot what it will read. Studio seemed to understand the file to a point, and detected scenes and everything, but it won't play the content. I can put the scenes on the timeline, but still they won't play. I didn't try encoding anything in Studio, maybe it could work. But if all you want to do is reauthor with new chapters and menu's, TMPGEnc DVD Author will do the trick. You can even choose to use only part of your original content and that works. I would imagine since you can use VOBs as source, you can use the tool to create a DVD using content from differnet source DVDs. The menuing is a bit limiting, but flexible enough for most personal projects. Hope this works for you - please post here about your results. -NetReamer
You say that you can get m2v files, if you change the extension to mpg it will accept it as an mpeg file.
How To: Extracting video programs from a standalone DVD recorder. This article was originally prepared by a VideoReDo user(a lossless MPEG2 editor that is capable of editing MPEG2 streams without going through an entire decoding and re-encoding process. I would suggest you go to our web site and review the process to determine if this is what you are trying to accomplish. http://www.drdsystems.com/VideoReDo/ExtractStreamsFromDVD.htm Hope I could help tlevers@videoredo
