I have a love/hate relationship with DVDs

I have clients who bring me their raw footage masterpieces on DVD. I have to admit, I cringe when this happens because I have yet to find a reliable way to convert that footage into something that FCP will accept.

Here's what I've tried so far on the latest opus.

1. I open the DVD with Streamclip

2. I go to File>export and have tried to export to a Quicktime three different ways. It makes a Quicktime movie, but then when I try to open it in FCP, it gives me an error message. I've tried three different exports with three different kinds of compression, and FCP doesn't like any of them. The Streamclip default is Apple Motion Jpeg A.

Which compression should I use in Streamclip? Has anyone used one that works consistently?

Yes, I cringe too whenever that happens. The quality is so bad.

>Has anyone used one that works consistently?

Yes. Sequence codec. Export it to whatever your sequence codec is. If it's HD. Good luck up converting.



www.strypesinpost.com

Okay, thanks. One teensy problem. My sequence codec is DV NTSC 48 khz. But there is nothing in Streamclip that says that.

Has anyone ever actually used Streamclip for what I'm talking about? And if so, how did you do it to make it work?

> My sequence codec is DV NTSC 48 khz. But there is nothing in Streamclip that says that.

The correct one to use is Apple DV/DVCPro NTSC if you don't want to render. If you want higher quality, you can try "Apple FCP Uncompressed 10-bit" or Photo JPEG.


www.derekmok.com

I had the same issue when i had to retrieve video files from a DVD. Here's the advice that was given to me regarding using MPEG Streamclip (and it worked fine for me.)

Launch MPEG Streamclip. Double-click the DVD icon and open the VIDEO_TS folder. Locate the largest VOB file and drag it to the MPEG Streamclip interface. It may ask if you want to open multiple files if the disc has more than one. It may also tell you it needs to fix timecode breaks. Say yes to both. Once the footage loads into MPEG Streamclip, use 'i' to set an IN point and 'o' to set an OUT point.

Next go to File->Export to QuickTime. When the export window opens, change the Compression type to Apple DV/DVCPro-NTSC. Set the quality to 100%, change the audio from "auto" to 48khz and set the frame rate to 29.97. If you have many clips to do, you can save these settings as a preset. Once you have all the settings made, click the 'Make Movie' button; give the file a name and location.

When you're finished with all the clips, you can import the entire folder into FCP for editing.

Good Luck!

Thanks. That worked.

jjnap,

will this method and software work for PAL mpeg2 footage as well? I have been asked to edit a short program for a local community center, and they have the "original" footage on DVD...

In any case, I will download that software and have a play. Thanks for the post. Cheers, kl

Sorry. I have had no experience at all w/ PAL. In fact, I'm pretty much a novice to FCP, but I just happened to have had the same problem as you, and I'm glad to be of help. (This forum is awesome!)

>I have been asked to edit a short program for a local community center, and they have the
>"original" footage on DVD...

Yes. But capture as DV-PAL (Quicktime), 25fps. Or better, Uncompressed or whatever your sequence codec is.



www.strypesinpost.com

Well, then there's always the low end way, which is often poo-pooed but works everytime. Simply connect the analog outputs of the DVD player to your firewire deck, converter box or camera. The digital to analog/digital hit is not that bad. It does depend on how criticial the end quality needs to be and the quality of the material on the DVD to begin with but, I'd try it before you condemn it. I frequently have to grab footage from a DVD and this is a sure, relatively straightforward way of doing it.

I bought a DVD ripper a while ago. It works great except the quality is often real bad after ripping...but I always thought that's the only way I can convert the Video/Audio TS files. Will check out this Streamclip now...