Editing DVD Files?

September 14, 2006 12:04 PM

How do I get files off a DVD and then convert to a format I can edit?

My company had a DVD made with customer testomonials on it. Someone gave me a copy of the DVD, asked me to convert it to a digital format and edit it slightly with the ultimate end product being that I convert the final edited file to a .flv file for playing in a flash player on our web site. I'm a flash programmer so I can do the last two steps, but I'm totally clueless regarding -

a) how to get the files off the dvd
b) how to convert them to something like an avi file so I can edit them
c) what a good program would be to edit the files with?

I've got the Macromedia Suite and the Adobe Creative Suite, but none of these (as far as I know) will let me get files off a dvd and then edit them.

I hope I've adequately conveyed that I really know nothing about this, so any and all advice, especially specific products to use, would be appreciated.

And - Oh! I work for a large corporation so it goes without saying that I have no money to actually buy software and explaining why I need some software and then actually getting the software is a months long project and my deadline is, of course, today. So all free solutions are the best ones.

Thanks -

posted by katyjack to computers & internet (10 comments total)

If your company made the DVD, it should own the source materials used to mix down the final project.

Failing that, look into a free transcoder like ffmepgx, which will transcode MPEG2 (DVD) to AVI with audio.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:17 PM on September 14, 2006

Getting files off a DVD is known as ripping.
posted by jellicle at 12:20 PM on September 14, 2006

AutoGordianKnot (also known as AutoGK) will convert the .vob files to divX but you might need DVDdecrypter to get the VOB files off the disc
posted by TwoWordReview at 12:24 PM on September 14, 2006 [1 favorite has favorites]

There's no shortage of howtos and links at videohelp.com.
posted by phearlez at 12:24 PM on September 14, 2006

It's a pain in the ass

In OS X I recently used ffmpegx to translate from VOB to .mov from a bunch of DVDs and then imported into Final Cut Pro to cut together a montage. However you may hit problems with soundtracks playing back out of sync or at the wrong speed, and these may have to be corrected manually. I hit quite a lot of this.
posted by unSane at 12:31 PM on September 14, 2006

Oh yeah, and to decrypt the .vob files from the DVD I used Mac The Ripper. The latest public version is 2.6.6 but the betas of v 3.0 which are floating around torrentspace are much better.
posted by unSane at 12:33 PM on September 14, 2006

It's pretty easy to get files off a DVD and convert them to AVI files. I do it all the time. All legit, of course. :)

Here are the tools you need:

1)If your company DVD has any DRM on it (unlikely...but who knows), I'd use a free program called DVD Decrypter. You can use it on all files on the DVD or just a few if that's all you need. Whoever put the DVD together might even have done it as just one big file. Whatever. It's easy. Just do the whole DVD if you're not sure what to pick out.

FWIW, I believe that a VOB file is basically a MPEG-2 type of file.

I think that I'd skip this step and see if you can get things to work without using DVD Decrypter for your first pass.

2) Download a free and terrific file converter (also video player) called SUPER. Pick a VOB file that you want to ultimately edit. Do this by just scouting around and double clicking on various VOB files which will open in your DVD player and see what's on them. Drag and drop the VOB file in the space indicated on the SUPER interface. Pick the avi option for your output (and some other stuff which you can leave at the default values if you want). Click the button to encode and sit back and wait. Give it a little time. If it's a big file it could take 10 minutes or so.

When it's done "cooking" it will dump the output (your new .avi file) in a folder called "output" on your hard drive in the program files subdirectory where you installed SUPER. The directory is called erightsoft (or something like that) rather than SUPER. Play it in WMP or whatever to make sure it's OK then go to the editing step below.

Note that SUPER is annoying to try to close out of. You'll see. Put your cursor at the very top of the program on your screen, left click if you're using a PC and close. Then there's an OK button which you also have to click. Nothing else works.

3)Now you can edit the avi file. Here's where you'll have to google around and find some free video editing software. I use a product called Adobe Premiere Elements but it's not free.

I know that a bunch of free video hosting website are now including some video editing capabilites. There's also something over at SourceForge. You'll have to handle this part of the process.

Good luck!
posted by bim at 5:18 PM on September 14, 2006 [2 favorites has favorites]

On this topic ...

Every time I try to use SUPER, it converts my VOB file into an MPEG-4 file, whereas I wanted it to convert to an MPEG-2 file for editing purposes. Any advice? :)
posted by badlydubbedboy at 1:58 AM on September 15, 2006

Hmmm...I don't know the answer to that, dubboy.

I HAVE noticed that when I try to convert a VOB to an MPEG4 (since youtube suggest using an MPEG4 with DivX or Xvid), SUPER takes too long to "cook" to suit me and the file gets a lot bigger than I want. That's why I just stick to converting to a .avi file which seems to work quite well and I can easily edit the .avi file. :)
posted by bim at 6:03 AM on September 15, 2006

Thanks for everyone's help. I wish I could pick more than one Best Answer, but I picked the one that reminded me that getting files of a DVD or CD is called "ripping" because once I remembered that simple fact, the world of Google opened up to me and yielded a treasure trove of info. If anyone is looking to do the same thing, wikiHow has a great overview

Always helps to speak the language!
posted by katyjack at 7:22 AM on September 15, 2006