Editing footage from a DVD

[Rob Birks]

Hi all,

A client wants us to edit some material for her from a DVD - cutting ti down to show on YouTube. The encoding side of it is fine, as I can use Compressor to make me some fine YouTube quality vids.

I'm speaking to her later today, but I'm presuming the DVD will be authored. I can use HandBrake to rip the content, but what format would you advise I rip it as in HandBrake, bearing in mind I will be editing the footage in FCP? Just looking for the best quality footage here.

Many thanks,

Rob

[Craig Parkes]

First you should consider MPEG streamclip - it will do a much better job than Handbrake if the DVD is not copy protected (and most personal use/show reel DVD's etc aren't)

From there just rip it directly to whatever quicktime format you are most comfortable with - for the majority that's going to be Prores - If you've got the hard drive speed (Raid etc.) and space then uncompressed is going to allow the least degradation of quality as you put effects etc on, but in general for this sort of thing that really doesn't matter.

If you've got a very low end system or are short of space, DV or DVCPRO50 are both viable options as well.

Handbrake will force you to rip into mp4 in H264 or xvid or something, which isn't really useful for editing. If I have to do that, I normally then transcode the MP4 to Prores etc to make for easy editing (again, using MPEG Streamclip).

[Rob Birks]

Thanks Craig, that's really helpful. I have downloaded and installed Mpeg Streamclip, and will hopefully be able to get the best possible quality now :)

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Considering that DVD is SD-resolution with compressed Mpeg 2, I find personally, for me, that it helps to convert it to DV with Mpeg Streamclip is the best solution.

You get the same resolution, and a codec that's very low on processor power these days so it works very fast.

[Rob Birks]

Does that mean there's less re-compression going on, as you're ripping it as the file type it's already been encoded to?

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

DV is DV.
Prores is prores.
DVD is Mpeg2.

So you will have to compress anyway (wether you choose DV or Prores or something else), because DVD are muxed Mpeg2 files which are not meant for editing.

Prores is normally better suited for more re-compression then DV, but if you know you'll just will have to cut the images, without lots of graphical work on top of it, or color correction work, or re-compressing afterwards, I think you're safe to pick DV.

[Craig Parkes]

The least recompression 'technically' achievable would be to rip an mpeg/m2v stream and trim edit, but there are huge limitations on that because it is not intraframe capable so you can't get frame accurate editing.

The next least amount of recompression would be ripping to uncompressed, because you would be not putting it into a new compressed codec so would get no generational loss at that first stage in terms of visuals, and only the additional compression back to dvd.

Next least would be some low compression codec, Prores4444, ProresHQ are two good examples, followed by prores. There are also third part options like Cineform that can be very good from what I have been told.

After that, you get into the higher bitrate DV based codecs, like DVCPRO 50, and then you have DV.

Of all the above dv is going to have the largest amount of degradation in the colour channels due to recompression - so I would avoid the extra degradation especially if the existing DVD has some colour blocking etc (especially on the reds) - DV compression will make this worse, especially in the case of graphics.

The compromise is transcoding time plus space place computing overhead while editing, the gruntier your system the easier it is to opt for the path of least compression.

[Rob Birks]

Thanks guys, I'll try those options (in your order, Craig) and see what gives me the best picture. As I'm encoding it into a web video after editing, the least compression I do at this stage the better :)

I will avoid the mpeg/m2v stream and trim edit option though, as I'm not a fan of the lack of control you would get if you can't do frame accurate editing.

Thanks again for your advice. Really appreciated!