I am producing a wedding video right now and the bride had a photo montage done by one of her friends. She brought me the montage on DVD and I need to extract the mpeg-2 file in order to incorporate it directly into her wedding dvd.

I need some direction on how to accomplish this. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

Ben Lynn

There are tools out there... what do you have? A Mac or a PC?

A PC.

DVD Decrypter to convert the VOB files (in the DVD) to MPEG-2 files.

Canopus Procoder Express to convert the MPEG-2 files to AVI(DV) files that you can import into your NLE.

Best regards,
Arnaldo

Thank you Arnaldo. I look into that today.

Ben Lynn

If you need further assistance, drop a line.

Best regards,
Arnaldo

if you import the converted mpeg2 file into the dv editing application, watch out for picture degredation from all the format conversions.

in a perfect world, you would be much better off just adding the mpeg2 file directly onto the dvd as part of the dvd authoring process... give it it's own link on the dvd menu.

but in the real world, there could be problems with differing mpeg2 frame sizes and bitrates, that could prevent you from getting a fully compatible dvd... you'll need to know exactly what the mpeg2 files that you are working with really are... 720x480, 704x480, vbr or cbr, etc.

This may not be the best solution, but it has worked fairly well for me. I am assuming that the product will be edited as non-linear DV.

I have dubbed from my own DVD's (in some cases VHS transferred to DVD) directly to DV tape using composite video out from the DVD player to my DV record deck. From there it's simple to import that tape directly into FCP via Firewire. If you don't have a DV deck, you can dub directly into your DV camera.

If you have a DVD player with Firewire, then you will have less loss in your transfer, likewise with component video. Unless I'm missing something, the only additional compression with this method is when the previously compressed DVD information is converted (then compressed again) to DV format. Only one additional compression before importation into your editing program, and as we all know, the fewer compression steps the better.

It's pretty simple and it works. If I'm missing something, or there is an easier/better way to do it I would also welcome any suggestions.