importing family dvd into vegas 9

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william boehm

Member
ah yet another newbie question. a friend has transferred old family videos onto dvds. i cannot seem to find a way to import these files into Vegas Pro 9. i believe they are vob files. thanks in advance...

i have cineform neoscene 5 and Vegas Pro 9
 
File>Import>DVD Camcorder Disc

Or, transfer the Video_TS folder to a hard drive and then bring in the .vob files directly. The largest files will be the actual video.
 
i see...they are not camcorder discs, but regular sd dvds he cut for me from videos that were pretty old. again i am not sure if they are vob or vts ? something like that. i should transfer the files to the hard drive? then convert...i probably need a little more step by step instruction. thanks again for the time
 
Maybe rip them as H.264 MP4s (with really high bitrates, and at their native resolution) with Handbrake, and then run them through Neoscene so that you can work with them in Vegas?
 
I wouldn't make them h.264. That's even more highly-compressed than the MPEG-2 that they are on the DVD, and for editing purposes, you're making it harder for yourself by doing it.

The .vob files are MPEG-2 files. You can even retag them as .mpg, but you don't have to.

It's true that MPEG-2 is still not ideal for editing, but it'll be better than h.264, especially when you're creating h.264 files FROM MPEG-2 files.

If Import DVD Camcorder Disc doesn't work (by pointing it at the DVD in the drive), then just transfer the folders to your hard drive, as I said, and select the largest .vob files manually. But it should work, and it should tag the imported files as .mpg. If your DVD drive is the only DVD source, it should automatically select it.
 
thanks daVID...i took your advice and the files were successfully transferred. i want to intermingle the old family shots on the mpeg 2 with the dv avi files i had transfered from the old camcorder.

should i transfer the mpeg2 files into a cineform codec? if that is even possible, or do everything in Vegas? again i am new, and havent attempted to merge or edit yet in vegas other than cutting out segments i dont want. thankyou again for helping new people to the forum out. bill
 
There's no reason to go to Cineform with it. Converting to Cineform is really only for tough footage/codecs that computers have trouble with. MPEG-2 from a DVD is easy. It's not the best quality for editing, but it isn't difficult to work with.
 
The .veg file is your project file - essentially it provides a roadmap for how your edited movie should look and how Vegas should display it while you are editing. e.g. start with file1.avi from 2:30 to 2:45, then cut to file65.mpeg from 1:11 to 1:44, and a whole lot of other information. No one can actually watch a .veg file.

When you're done editing and want to save an actual video, you need to go to File - Render As, and save the file through there. There is a dizzying array of different formats and options to choose from, and all have different uses depending on what you want to do with the final video.

For basic stuff like burning a family DVD or putting a family video on you-tube the default templates work fairly well. You can also search here and on google for vegas render settings and get some ideas on what you can tweak to help improve things.
 
thankyou for explaining. i now know what rendering is about....saving in some format other than the .veg. any particular choices best for attempting to do hdv combining with these older dv-avi files as a final save? will mpeg2 loose much if it is only cut, the pasted into the time line, then saved as ? another avi file, or what do most people use to retain as much quality as they can? i really appreciat your help. bill
 
It's important to understand the difference between "saving" and "rendering." Saving a .veg file doesn't create video. A .veg file isn't like a Word document or Excel spreadsheet, where the file is the document itself. A .veg file just just a record of what you've done on the timeline.

This is important to remember, because saving a .veg file doesn't save video. Occasionally, people will think that all of the information contained in the project is in the .veg file (like a Photoshop .psd, I guess), but it isn't. If you save a .veg file but delete your video clips, the video clips are gone and will show up as blank events on the timeline.

Rendering is when you make a self-contained video file. It takes your timeline and mixes down everything you've done into a playable video clip.
 
Got it...then i should render to what kind of format..i have cineform neoscene..is that a generally good codec to keep the mix and matched hd, dv avi, cfhd, and mpeg2?
 
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