Editing material out of dvd’s: What is the best way?


I was informed by my local cable station that the program I was submitting to them via dvd was out of compliance with their rules and regulations because it contained free offers for materials and as they termed it “calls to action. Accordingly, until I can rectify the situation the program was pulled from being broadcast hence my dilemma and appeal for help.

Of course that make things considerably more difficult which will now require editing with the right tools. Since dvd’s contain vobs which can be converted into an MPEG file that’s the formats I will have to deal with.

My concerns and objectives are these:

1) I want to retain the highest possible quality to the extent possible considering the choices available.

2) My goal is to edit out the offers and then resave the file without transcoding or encoding again and compressing it further which of course impacts on quality!

So, does Premiere Pro CS3.2 offer any solution? Can I import an MPEG, slice n’ dice as needed and resave the results as a modified MPEG, i.e. already compressed?

Alternatively, are there any options for editing vobs which I have no experience with?

Preferably, I could convert to MPEG-2 and edit with a suitable application. If so what would that be?

In conclusion, what’s the best workflow which will satisfy the cable stations demands, reinstate the program and preserve quality?

Please keep in mind the “source” file/material from the dvd is already highly compressed. All I have access to is the dvd, not the original files that were used to make that dvd.

What would you do if you were in my shoes?

Thanks for joining in the discussion!

1. Get the source material, not the DVD material.

2. Refuse the assignment.

3. Convert, edit and accept the inherent, unavoidable quality loss.

Following Harm, I'll take door number two.

But if it must be done, as I recall, in CS3 you can rename the VOB file to .mpg and then you can edit it.

If you gotta do this, the highly-regarded freeware mpegStreamclip (5squared.com) can handle your vob files....

Edit: @Bart, mpegStreamclip comes in Mac and PC flavors, same excellent program in both platforms. Thanks for the reference to Vobrator, got to check it out....

What they said. Number 2.

Chances are that your edits will end up in the middle of GOP anyway, and you will have to recompress. Any effect or transition you add will require recompression as well.

Alternatively, you can do the rough cut int Adobe Encore (sic!), because it retains GOPs - there is no way to miss a cut there. It's a pain in the a**, but can be done. And it will not recompress the file. However it has no editing tools except for simple cutting, and you probably would want to do the sound in a different app.

If Encore for some reason doesn't accept VOBs, use Streamclip (Mac) or Vobrator (PC) to extract m2v and ac3/aiff/wav streams and work with those.

Option 2 is being considered although I'm certainly not a quitter and look for solutions rather than giving up although it is certainly tempting.

This is not a work related (paid) assignment but rather involves a volunteer church ministry which I head.

One of the issues is the quality of the compressed material on the dvd is not exactly ideal to begin with in my opinion which will probably only deteriorate from their dependant on how much processing it undergoes.

For those who are Encore savvy, are you saying that once I import an mpeg-2 file as an asset it can be saved without being subject to further re-encoding as a mpeg file? Please confirm and clarify?

In CS3, yes I could rename the vob as an mpeg, put it on the timeline and make cuts but then what? Sorry to ask, how would I save & retain the edited file in an mpeg format without re-ecoding/more compression?

I used a PC program called VOB 2 Mpeg v3 which does a nice job. The next step is to make the necessary cuts which I did. The roadblock is how to proceed next.

Unfortunately I do not have access to the original material which is mailed to me from the other side of the country.

Capture your dvd with a camera with analog in, this will give you dv avi which is easy to edit.

Bruce, you can edit mpg/vob files in Premiere, but it will always need another encoding on export.

Encore on the other hand will not reencode "edited" videos but it does not give you frame-by-frame editing, only GOP-accurate editing (12-15 frames depending on the encoding), and no transitions to work with. You will not be able to save it as an mpeg file, but you will be able to record it to DVD, and if you want to have MPEG file, just demux the VOB files via MPEGStreamClip or Vobrator.

Hope this helps