For my first fan edit, I am working on Superman IV (yeah, I know). But I'm having one heck of a time getting things right from a technical perspective.
First, I decided to use Pinnacle Studio 11 and found it so easy to edit clips together, make small cuts, etc. The first problem was that the software does not recognize VOB's so I had to convert the VOB to mpeg. I did this first by renaming the file. Seemed to work fine, I was able to edit, trim. But the software wouldn't let me burn the DVD (always said my disc was full when it was not) so I just created a file and then burned the dvd with xilisoft. Problem is, the video on the DVD suffers from stutter every second. It's never "smooth" and it's especially noticeable during panning. I fired up Studio 11 again and noticed it's the same in the preview window and I just didn't notice it or care. So I did some research and found out you shouldn't just rename VOB's, you should convert them. The VOBs looked fine in media player/VLC, but I didn't check them after I renamed them. So I downloaded so many converter programs and did it "the right way". When I watch the full mpeg on my computer with windows media player, it's fine. However when I import it into Studio 11, the preview always stutters even if the file being imported is good. To see if the finished product would stutter, I made a movie of a small file and watched it. Same problem.. video stutter every second, never smooth, kind of like a pause every second.
Then I decided to try out other editing programs - Sony Vegas seems nice, and I almost completed my film with it, but had some problems. Three of the scenes on the converted mpeg (this time 26 mpegs, one for each chapter) have no sound. Although they worked well in Studio 11 (I could hear sound), in Sony Vegas there's no sound at all for these 3 files. Only the video portion is dropped into the timeline. So my work could not be completed. So then I downloaded PowerDirector 7, and liked that layout as well, however when importing the mpegs again, it let me know that three files had dolby digital encoding and director 7 does not have the permissions to use it... so silence again, but at least I had my answer.
I'm really not sure what to do and it's been about 2 days. I'd really like Studio 11 to work because its by far the easiest, but the video jitter is not acceptable. The two other programs (Vegas seemed best, but more confusing), give me no audio on 3 different scenes, and that's unacceptable.
What can I do? How do others make fan edits so easy? I thought the hard part would be editing the movie, but it's simple. The hard part for me is the software part of it! Please help!