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Video Editing: Where Do I Start?

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I'm sure this has been asked somewhere before, but I'm very interested in getting into video editing. Could anyone give me a general outline of the technology (software/hardware) needed to make something along the lines of MagnoliaFan's stuff, music videos, trailers, and the like? I have literally NO idea where to start, and would be very greatful for any product info you'd be willing to give me. And if there IS somewhere this has been previously addressed, please direct me to that location. Thanks.
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First of all, I'm assuming you have a DVD ROM in your computer, but what about a burner?

Secondly, to be honest, starting off with ripping DVDs and editing VOBs isn't a great place to start. You might want to get some edting expertise with AVI's first, since most DVD editing programs will work with these. You should also create an account at Videohelp.com, and use their search feature for specifuc questions. There's this thread in particular: Star Wars Conversions-Hit me with your best shot..

If you have any specific questions, myself and many others here would be happy to answer them.

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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building on what mebejedi said. here's another site you need to bookmark and make a common port of call.

http://forum.doom9.org/

is the doom 9 forums, and

http://forum.doom9.org/

for the main site that is more general news etc.

this site is filled with people with a broad range of experience to draw upon.

to get into things at a cheap level go to http://www.virtualdub.org/ and download virtualdub. this is a free god value editing tool and for most people here, the base program of choice for a lot of basic editing such as splitting files, recompressing, color correction etc.

when used in conjunction with www.avisynth.org which is a site that deals with a scripting language where you can use additional filters in conjunction with virtual dub. virtualdub, or vdub as it is more commonly referred to also does video capture so as I said, it's a good cheap way of getting into the hobby.

from the audio side of things, soundforge isn't bad but expensive, Sony vegas 5.0 is a capture program, linear editor, and sound mixing suite and very very good. there were some older threads that dealt with how to make 5.1 sound out of stereo tracks on this board and doom9 goes into this in a great deal of detail.

besweet is a good program to convert wav's to mp3 or ac3 digital files. there's a lot more I could say but the best thing to do to get started is to get virtualdub, look into avisynth and all the additional filters you can download and read on doom9 forums and just start playing. you learn a lot just by doing and if you need advice, the guys on the board at doom9, videohelp.com or here can help you out if you have issues.
When a woman says yes, she means no - when she says maybe, she means no.

http://www.auky37.dsl.pipex.com/falconlogo_web.jpg
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"here's another site you need to bookmark and make a common port of call. http://forum.doom9.org/"

Wow, can't believe I forgot that one (though I've not been there in a while.)

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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Thanks a lot guys.

I'll check this stuff out and come back when I have a better idea of what I'm talking about.
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Don't stray too far...we need new blood here.

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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If you have no money, then get a cheap PC and then download and instal ubuntu linux (it is very easy and automated and doesn't fill you HD with crap you don't need) from here: http://www.ubuntulinux.org/

then get cinelerra from here:
http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3
also free.

Virtual dub from doom9.org (You can run it under windows or under linux using WINE..here http://www.winehq.com/) or
http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/ which is a virtual clone of virtualdub for linux.
both are free

You can use GIMP for stills editing, it is much like photoshop and is entirely free and is installed by ubuntu automagically.

Don't be scared. Ubuntu looks a lot like Windows except doesn't crash. I have literally NEVER had Ubuntu or Debian crash, and I have been using debian for 10 years - not one system crash - ever.

So no more excuses people about the money required to get into this stuff, ALL of the above is 100% free and doesn't need a beastmaster PC to run.
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I'm pretty much set with video editing; it's getting to the point where I can do that that I'm having trouble with. Do any of you know the best tool (freeware) for converting .vob's to MPEG2 with no noticeable loss of picture quality? Nero can convert them, but the quality is not satisfactory. I don't need copyright protection removed (DVD shrink does the job) but I do need a very high-quality MPEG file so I can edit it with Roxio and VideoWave instead of Nero.

Thanks!

Episode II: Shroud of the Dark Side

Emperor Jar-Jar
“Back when we made Star Wars, we just couldn’t make Palpatine as evil as we intended. Now, thanks to the miracles of technology, it is finally possible. Finally, I’ve created the movies that I originally imagined.” -George Lucas on the 2007 Extra Extra Special HD-DVD Edition

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.VOB files contain MPEG-2, so there should be no lossy conversion involved. VOBEdit can demux them into component streams, including an .mpv file.
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Vobrator works well also.

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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I think I worded my question badly. I know that .vob's contain MPEG-2 video, but what is the easiest way to turn them into mpeg's? Just changing the file extension doesn't work.

I need to do this because my video editors accept mpeg but not .vob.

Episode II: Shroud of the Dark Side

Emperor Jar-Jar
“Back when we made Star Wars, we just couldn’t make Palpatine as evil as we intended. Now, thanks to the miracles of technology, it is finally possible. Finally, I’ve created the movies that I originally imagined.” -George Lucas on the 2007 Extra Extra Special HD-DVD Edition

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Like I said, Vobrator will do what you want, which is demuxing the video and audio.

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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Oh, OK. Sorry about that. I just looked it up, and an .mv2 file is really a type of MPEG-2 file.

So what I really need is either a .vob to .mpg converter, or a .mv2 to .mpg converter, because .mv2's don't work with my software either.

Do you know of any?

Episode II: Shroud of the Dark Side

Emperor Jar-Jar
“Back when we made Star Wars, we just couldn’t make Palpatine as evil as we intended. Now, thanks to the miracles of technology, it is finally possible. Finally, I’ve created the movies that I originally imagined.” -George Lucas on the 2007 Extra Extra Special HD-DVD Edition

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Again, Vobrator will do this. Select the VOB you want, and uncheck "select in output" so that all elements have an "x". Then, select the video and check "select in output". Now, only the video will be extracted.

Go to "save" (not demux), and save it to a file with an .MPG extension. This should give you what you want.

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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Great. Thanks very much for answering my stupid questions. I’ve been busy this week and haven’t had the chance to try everything to get this to work.

I now have an .mpg video file, but the video speed is incorrect. Therefore, the audio (which plays at the correct speed) is out of sync. Do you know the easiest way to slow the video down to the correct speed?

Episode II: Shroud of the Dark Side

Emperor Jar-Jar
“Back when we made Star Wars, we just couldn’t make Palpatine as evil as we intended. Now, thanks to the miracles of technology, it is finally possible. Finally, I’ve created the movies that I originally imagined.” -George Lucas on the 2007 Extra Extra Special HD-DVD Edition

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How on Earth did that happen? Are they in sync as a VOB?

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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Yes, they are in sync as a .vob (and as a .m2v, for that matter).

Maybe it's time to download some new codecs; mine are four years old.

Episode II: Shroud of the Dark Side

Emperor Jar-Jar
“Back when we made Star Wars, we just couldn’t make Palpatine as evil as we intended. Now, thanks to the miracles of technology, it is finally possible. Finally, I’ve created the movies that I originally imagined.” -George Lucas on the 2007 Extra Extra Special HD-DVD Edition

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Does anyone know what could possibly cause the weird error described above?

Episode II: Shroud of the Dark Side

Emperor Jar-Jar
“Back when we made Star Wars, we just couldn’t make Palpatine as evil as we intended. Now, thanks to the miracles of technology, it is finally possible. Finally, I’ve created the movies that I originally imagined.” -George Lucas on the 2007 Extra Extra Special HD-DVD Edition

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I'll make some quesses over to what might have caused it:
1) The file was grabbed and encoded from a specific source, but the framerate was incorrectly selected (E.G. The source was PAL 25fps and the encoder selected a NTSC 29.97 fps output without performing pulldown.)
2) Sometimes the audio and video streams appear to be out of sync, when video is to complex for the pc to process in real time. Outcome: the pc takes some time to render the frames, giving an output fps slower than it should. Audio, which is much easier to decompress plays at real speed and therefore appears to be "early" in comparison to the video. But this problem should most commonly appear when using mpeg-4 files, which are more cpu-demanding, not with mpeg or mpeg-2 files.
3) Damaged stream headers could cause desync. That could be an outcome of a bad download.

Solutions:
1) If the video or audio stream frequency is wrong, they can be adjusted using Virtual Dub. If you wanna avoid any sound pitch alteration, I suggest changing the video framerate (desired fps = available video frames / audio stream length in seconds). Virtual dub can also change audio frequency without altering the pitch.
2) Get a newer CPU, or download lighter codecs (ffdshow ffdshow 2004.10.12 is the lightest I have ever used, giving the lowest cpu consumption)
3) Virtual Dub can fix this problem, simply by loading the file, and saving it using "direct stream copy option".

As to your question about converitng files to .mpg: After a lot of searching and headaching, "Aare AVI to VCD DVD SVCD MPEG Converter" was the only prog I found that satisfied me. Unfortunatelly it is not a freeware prog, you will have to "try and buy" it.
You could also use adobe premiere with certain plugins to enable .mpg output, using Morgan MJPEG v3 codec.
But if the programs you are using accept .mpg, they most probably accept .m2v also. In that case, any demuxer would do the job (even DVD Decrypter can demux the streams when in IFO mode)

Edit: The last paragraph was not neccessary: I just saw that this question has been answered, sorry.
And now, for your feature presentation:
The Classic Re-re-re-release of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back.
In this version the word "WOOKIE" has been changed to "HAIR CHALLENGED ANIMAL" and the entire cast has been digitally replaced by Ewoks.
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Originally posted by: Trooperman
Yes, they are in sync as a .vob (and as a .m2v, for that matter).
Weird that the .m2v has audio in sync, seeing as that file extension is normally video only.

m2v = MPEG-2 video, some programs use the extension .mpv instead.

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