Burned DVD to Final Cut

[Paul Cronin]

Amazing I have never had to do this before. I have an old DVD that I edited years ago on my Avid system which sits in the corner of my office. The hardware has problems so I can't pull the footage off the system and I need to post the final DVD.

Question:
How to I put a burned DVD into Final Cut Pro?

[Shaun Roemich]

I use MPEG Streamclip to:
First, repair timecode breaks - happens pretty much ALL the time with burned DVDs and then convert the VIDEO_TS to whatever editable format I want to use.

Free download.

[Paul Cronin]

Nice one thanks Shaun,

I use MPEG Streamclip all the time for POV work I will give it a go.

[Shaun Roemich]

No problem. Funny timing - I spent all afternoon pulling keynote speakers from DVD archives of multicamera live switched conferences using MPEG-SC! Hence the reason I'm REAL active on here today. Lots of downtime while MPEG-SC fixes TC breaks and encodes...

[Vito DeFilippo]

Originally Posted by Shaun Roemich

I use MPEG Streamclip to:
First, repair timecode breaks - happens pretty much ALL the time with burned DVDs

Hey Shaun,

I've used Procoder many times to convert mpeg2 off DVDs to formats I can edit and never experienced 'timecode' breaks. What do you mean? There's no timecode on a DVD, is there?

I rip the DVD. import VOB files and convert. Never had a problem, other than it looking like crap cause it's 'who knows how many generations away from the original video.'

PS. Hope you're enjoying Vancouver!

[Shaun Roemich]

Not sure that it is "timecode" per se, although MPEG-SC reports it as such. I think it's a broken MPEG stream. In MY case, they typically aren't AUTHORED DVDs I'm pulling clips from, it's from a DVD recorder that I use to capture archival video of live multiswitched presentations with. DVCam is too expensive for 5 x 8 hour days, used to use VHS up until 4 years ago and there isn't enough margin or budget to use a PVR/HDD style device.

Any way, in a two hour DVD-R, I get about 100 "timecode breaks" so I fix them to reconnect the streams.

I've been on FCP so long that VOB's never used to be editable until I found this solution so I stuck with it. I may be behind the times but my methodology is rock solid.

Loving Vancouver. Still making trips back and forth and maintaining two residences for now. 21k kilometers in 3 months and one week on my brand new Subaru...

[William Hohauser]

There's timecode on DVDs but not SMPTE per se. It's just like consumer DV tape or even a QuickTime file. Each frame has a time number assigned to it.

DVDs created in DVDStudio Pro or Toast never have timecode breaks. It seems to only be on disks from DVD recorders. Probably a side effect from the live encoding and burning process while recording direct to a blank. A client sends me disks from a DVD recorder that doesn't need fixing, possibly a Sony recorder. I know from experience that Panasonic and JVC DVD recorders break the timecode

[Vito DeFilippo]

Originally Posted by Shaun Roemich

In MY case, they typically aren't AUTHORED DVDs I'm pulling clips from, it's from a DVD recorder that I use to capture archival video of live multiswitched presentations with.

That must be it. Usually for me, it's someone asking me to reuse footage from a completed project. I find it a nightmare, especially for maintaining a workflow that allows for recapture/reimport in case of trouble. You have to maintain archives of source video on disk that came from DVD, and be strict about folder structure, etc. Otherwise, months later you are saying, "now where did I import this clip from?"

The last time I worked with this kind of material, it was awful. The content was great, but the quality was just horrendous. But so many people are convinced that DVD makes a great aquisition medium.

Anyway, glad Van is good for you. Best of luck with the new location.

William, thanks for the clarification on DVD timecode. I wasn't aware of that.

[Paul Cronin]

Thanks Shaun I will give it a try when I finish my current edit. MPEG Streamclip is a great piece of free software.