How to import from DVD?

I edited a project then burned it to DVD now that I am putting a little demo reel together I want to put that project on there. Is there a way that I can import that back into my computer or FCP?
 
Re: How to import from DVD?

In my opinion, the best way to do this would be to convert the video on the computer. Assuming it is not a copy protected DVD, which in general it wouldn't be if you burned it, than you can use a program called DVDxDV. It will let you transcode the DVD to a .mov file that you can just import into FCP. It takes a while and costs $25, but you can select just the portion of the DVD that you want to import. You have to realize however with any method of importing a DVD you will lose a lot of quality. DVD is a highly compressed mpg2 format so you will be best off recapturing the original media if you have access to the tapes. This should be pretty simple using Batch Capture if you still have the original Final Cut Pro project file around.

That was pretty long winded, but I hope it helped...

Best of Luck,
Harry
 
Re: How to import from DVD?

I've got several individuals contributing footage to a show who have sent me dvd's of the footage I will be using. If I'm hearing you, this will not be good quality images as there will be a loss of resolution with the mpeg2 issue. So my question, then, is do I need to get footage saved as a quicktime file straight from fcp to maintain full quality resolution, or is something else that can be done other than sending a tape dub?
 
Re: How to import from DVD?

assuming that its  not a huge amount of video, i would have them submit the footage on tape, or as full res avi or quicktime files  on a data dvd, or cd.
 
Re: How to import from DVD?

[quote author=eklassen link=board=FCP;num=1080495910;start=0#3 date=04/05/04 at 10:13:03]I've got several individuals contributing footage to a show who have sent me dvd's of the footage I will be using.  If I'm hearing you, this will not be good quality images as there will be a loss of resolution with the mpeg2 issue.  So my question, then, is do I need to get footage saved as a quicktime file straight from fcp to maintain full quality resolution, or is something else that can be done other than sending a tape dub?[/quote]

Eklassen - Here is the problem with DVD...
(Let's see if I can do this quick)
DVDs are only 4.7 GB to begin with. If you know about standard DV files, they are 13GB an hour(roughly). If DVDs used straight DV files you'd get about 18 minutes of footage on the DVD. To cope with this limitation, the DVD spec uses highly compressed formats. For audio, it uses AC3, which uses discreet channels to retain quality but manages to compresss aiffs about 8x. For the video side of the equation, it is compressed as MPG2. If you've heard people talking about this, you've probably heard about 2-pass encoding. This means that your encoding software analyzez the video twice, once for picture and once for motion, and than assigns the propper bit rate to each individual piece of the video, hence VBR (variable bit rate) encoding. In some cases this can lead to something like 384 minutes of video at worst quality. To sum this up, someone said on one of these forums that the reason that DVD is so highly regarded as a high quality medium is because consumers are used to VHS, about 1/2 the quality of DVD, plus degredation over time...
As for your question about converting to quicktime, I suggested that because it will be the only way to convert an already lossy codec with out losing more quality over an analog connection. Like iamloser suggested, the best way to get the material into FCP would be the original tapes, but hey, sometimes that just can't happen...

Sorry for the long post - Hope it helped a little bit

-Harry
 
Re: How to import from DVD?

Is there no way of, say, pulling an MPEG2 out of a VOB without de/re-compressing? That is, to pull out a data stream (well, audio and video data streams) that I could then directly throw into a DVD authoring tool?
 
Re: How to import from DVD?

Whenever I need to capture anything off of a DVD, I just run it directly from my DVD player (via S-Video), through my DVX and directly onto my harddrive via my capture program (Premiere Pro). Obviously the quality isn't stellar, but I've done this (with the intent of cutting together an alternate trailer when the original footage wasn't available) and my client had no complaints. I guess it just depends on what the final destination of the footage will be.
 
Re: How to import from DVD?

[quote author=NickW link=board=FCP;num=1080495910;start=0#7 date=04/26/04 at 15:27:36]Whenever I need to capture anything off of a DVD, I just run it directly from my DVD player (via S-Video), through my DVX and directly onto my harddrive via my capture program (Premiere Pro). Obviously the quality isn't stellar, but I've done this (with the intent of cutting together an alternate trailer when the original footage wasn't available) and my client had no complaints. I guess it just depends on what the final destination of the footage will be. [/quote]

I've done this, too, with other camcorders but not yet with the DVX. Can you tell me how well sync is maintained using the DVX to import long segments this way?
 
Re: How to import from DVD?

To be honest, I haven't yet tried to capture segments longer than about 2 1/2 minutes. I can notice no sync problems with clips that length. I might have an opportunity to try this out in the near future though, so I'll keep you posted.
 
Re: How to import from DVD?

i just videotaped a 4 1/2 hour play last month w/ 2 dvx100a's in 24pa. i captured 10 mq tapes total capturing 55-57 minutes straight per tape(except the last 2 tapes) and not one sync issue...NOT ONE...this was on mac os10.2.7, fcp 4.1.1 on a g4 1ghz powermac.
 
Re: How to import from DVD?

[quote author=boo link=board=FCP;num=1080495910;start=0#10 date=05/04/04 at 12:56:19]i just videotaped a 4 1/2 hour play last month w/ 2 dvx100a's in 24pa.  i captured 10 mq tapes total capturing 55-57 minutes straight per tape(except the last 2 tapes) and not one sync issue...NOT ONE...this was on mac os10.2.7, fcp 4.1.1 on a g4 1ghz powermac.[/quote]

Right, we wouldn't expect any since your capturing from a DV tape. Some sync issues pop up with some device/NLE combinations when capturing analog converted to DV...
 
Re: How to import from DVD?

in that case, i captured 50 minutes straight of my son's wiggles vhs videos using the canopus advc-100 and dvx and no sync problems.
 
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