Topic: Editing DVD using Sony Vegas or Architect??

[SClassical]

Hi
I made a DVD from miniDV tapes using Sony Vegas 8.0 and Sony Architect. Now I want to go back and edit the DVD. How do I edit the DVD without going back to my miniDV tapes? Do I need to rip the DVD so that I can work on the menu, title, cutting again? Can someone tell me how to change things in my DVD without using my miniDV tapes. Can I use Sony Vegas or Architect to edit my DVD??

Thanks

[stantheman1976]

You shouldn't try to edit the DVD footage, especially since you have the original tape.  The DVD footage will have to be recompressed after editing and will look worse.  Did you erase the DV-AVI file and project files?  I normally try to save all the associated files until I know for sure my project is complete and I've delivered the finished product.  When I'm done with editing I'll also print the finished video back to tape so if I ever lose my DVD of the project I can transfer the finished footage, re-encode, and rebuild the DVD without having to edit the whole project again.

[SClassical]

Hi
Thanks for your reply! Yes I actually erased the AVI and wav files in my hard drive (because they were big and taking up a lot of space in my computer). I still have the miniDV tapes around but need to find them, which is a problem.

BTW you said you transfer the finished edited product back into a new miniDV tape? How do you do that...do you use Vegas

Thanks a lot!

[hummat]

It will be worth your time and energy to go back to the tapes.

-jay

[stantheman1976]

Hi
Thanks for your reply! Yes I actually erased the AVI and wav files in my hard drive (because they were big and taking up a lot of space in my computer). I still have the miniDV tapes around but need to find them, which is a problem.

BTW you said you transfer the finished edited product back into a new miniDV tape? How do you do that...do you use Vegas

Thanks a lot!

You can print to tape directly from the Vegas timeline.  Once you've finished editing and have your final track select the loop region you want and under Tools (I think) there's a Print to Tape option.  You'll select hte device and whether you want a solid color or test pattern as a hear and footer.  This ensures that if the DVD goes bad or gets scratched I can just retransfer the finished footage and build a new DVD easily from that.

I go one step further and when I have an external audio source, like the lapel mic feed from a groom or audio feed for music, I'll just add a solid color on a video track stretched to match the audio and I'll print it back to tape.  That way even if I had to rebuild the entire project from scratch I have everything I started with.  I figure if the external audio was 44.1KHz it will have to be resampled to go into DV-AVI or DVD so printing it to tape alone is just the same as being in a normal video project.  If I record at 48KHz the audio never has to be resampled so it doesn't matter.

[SClassical]

Thanks a lot!! I'll give it a try. If I need any help I'll ask you....Would have given you a +T but they removed it !!

[stantheman1976]

I'll answer what I'm able to.  I'm not an expert but I've been using Vegas for a couple years now and have learned a few tricks here and there.

[jkmb]

If you can no longer find the tapes, you could copy the VOB files directly to your hard drive and rename them from (for example) sweet_vid.VOB to sweet_vid.mpg  You must make sure you are renaming the extension correctly/completely and NOT ending up with a file called sweet_vid.mpg.VOB.

It helps to be able to see the actual file extensions.  (If using XP,  tools> folder options> view> uncheck Hide extensions for known file types.  Or, if old school, use the command prompt and type:  rename sweet_vid.VOB sweet_vid.mpg

Once you do this, hit the refresh in the Vegas explorer and you should be able to see your files.  This usually works it was a DVD Architect project i.e. no protection. ymmv

I imagine you would have to rebuild a new menu.  The original tapes would be the best option.

[rsimms3]

You shouldn't try to edit the DVD footage, especially since you have the original tape.  The DVD footage will have to be recompressed after editing and will look worse.  Did you erase the DV-AVI file and project files?  I normally try to save all the associated files until I know for sure my project is complete and I've delivered the finished product.  When I'm done with editing I'll also print the finished video back to tape so if I ever lose my DVD of the project I can transfer the finished footage, re-encode, and rebuild the DVD without having to edit the whole project again.

You can fully edit DVD footage without any recompression to the footage.  The best program for editing for simply cutting is VideoReDo Plus.  You can cut, join, edit any MPG stream including HD .TS files.  It is frame accurate and very reliable.  I suggest ripping your DVD with DVD Decryptor to join the VOBs into 1 large VOB, then you can load that into VideoReDo and cut, etc.  There are many editors that you can use that won't recompress you footage.  You can then load your edited footage back into a DVD creator to recreate the menu.  If you are cutting the source VOBs you will have to recreate the menu from scratch.  I use TMPEGEnc DVD Author which you can be set up to not reencode your video. 

Here is a list of MPEG editors from VideoHelp, a superb resource for Video knowledge:
http://www.videohelp.com/tools/sections/video-editors-mpg-dvd

[jkmb]

You can edit without recompression, but you still have to re-encode a new mpeg 2 file when you are done editing, right?

From the VideoReDo Plus website, I thought they were implying that it doesn’t do any intensive trans-coding pre-render processes before you edit.  Some editors do pre-rendering or encode into a different format so you can load lots of filters, masks and effects and still be able to see your video accurately in real time and high resolution before the final (non-related) encoding.

But I would think you would still have to encode with the lossy mpeg 2 codec when you are done editing.  Like editing an audio mp3 and then making a new audio mp3.  Even at the highest of bit rates it still goes back through the codec algorithms.   Some would say blasphemy others would say that they can tell no difference.

Nice reference (videohelp) website,  thanks!

[stantheman1976]

I've used Womble MPEG2VCR to do basic cuts and it does not recompress.  If you're wanting to just make cuts and not add any text, graphics, or fades this method will work.  If you make any of the aforementioned changes it will need to be re-encoded which will degrade quality.  Like rsimms said, rip with DVD decrypter and in the options there's a File Splitting tab.  Choose None and it will rip your DVD to a single VOB file.  If VideoReDo cannot take a VOB directly you can just rename the extension.  VOB files are just MPEG-2 streams with a different filename for DVD players to be able to read.

[rsimms3]

You can edit without recompression, but you still have to re-encode a new mpeg 2 file when you are done editing, right?

From the VideoReDo Plus website, I thought they were implying that it doesn’t do any intensive trans-coding pre-render processes before you edit.  Some editors do pre-rendering or encode into a different format so you can load lots of filters, masks and effects and still be able to see your video accurately in real time and high resolution before the final (non-related) encoding.

But I would think you would still have to encode with the lossy mpeg 2 codec when you are done editing.  Like editing an audio mp3 and then making a new audio mp3.  Even at the highest of bit rates it still goes back through the codec algorithms.   Some would say blasphemy others would say that they can tell no difference.

Nice reference (videohelp) website,  thanks!

It depends on what sorts of things you want to do.  If it's just cleaning up with edits, many programs will work with native MPEG2 files without any changes during the process.  But if you want to add effects, add text to the video itself, or so something to the actual video, yes you will need to reencode it.  If you just want to cut it and then redo the menus, that too would not require a reencode.  What exactly are you looking to do or fix from the original DVD?  You can even swap out audio track without the need to reencode provided the audio you are substituting, when added to the video, doesn't go over the max bit rate for DVD spec.  I did this recently upgrading an audio source and was able to keep the same menu and video, just replace the audio.  There's lots you can do these days without the need to do a full reencode.

[SClassical]

Actually I have 2 DVDs, which I plan to mix excepts of both DVDs into a new DVD. So if I rename all VOB files as mpg do I put all the files in Vagas 8? After doing the cutting and joining my excerpts do I still need to render my mpg segments into one single mpeg-2 file before transferring the file in DVD architect?

Thanks!

I've used Womble MPEG2VCR to do basic cuts and it does not recompress.  If you're wanting to just make cuts and not add any text, graphics, or fades this method will work.  If you make any of the aforementioned changes it will need to be re-encoded which will degrade quality.  Like rsimms said, rip with DVD decrypter and in the options there's a File Splitting tab.  Choose None and it will rip your DVD to a single VOB file.  If VideoReDo cannot take a VOB directly you can just rename the extension.  VOB files are just MPEG-2 streams with a different filename for DVD players to be able to read.

[guitard]

Actually I have 2 DVDs, which I plan to mix excerpts of both DVDs into a new DVD. So if I rename all VOB files as mpg do I put all the files in Vagas 8? After doing the cutting and joining my excerpts do I still need to render my mpg segments into one single mpeg-2 file before transferring the file in DVD architect?

Thanks!

Mixing two DVDs? 

If you a mixing big long chunks from each DVD - and not actually mixing the two angles together - you can use any number of the mpeg editors listed above at videohelp.com.

However, it's a whole different story if you're talking about mixing the two angles of a concert video and frequently switching back and forth between angles.

Mixing mpeg concert footage without re-encoding the footage can be done, but it's a royal pain in the ass and it's very tricky to do while keeping it looking nice.  It would be a job only for the most experienced people out there - but even most of them wouldn't do it.

I'm not going to bother explaining how to it - as I doubt you'll want to try.

If you are absolutely set on mixing these two angles, probably the best thing would be to re-capture the footage from the tapes you have for the first angle.  If you have the tapes for the second angle, recapture that also.  But from what I gather - you only have a DVD of the second angle.  If that's the case, you could just put that DVD in a DVD player and capture it as raw footage.  That will add an analog layer to that footage, but coming from a DVD sourced from a master tape - it shouldn't make that much of a difference.  You'll need an analog --> digital converter for that though (something like a Canopus).

Now you've got raw footage of both angles that you can easily edit together.