MAC - importing mini DVD footage - FCP

[Keneu Luca]

A friends of mine has some amateur footage he recored on his miniDVD recorder.

 

I have no experience with this format. I have FCP on my MAC. I was given this Mac. It doesnt have any DVD player capabilities until I just downloaded a free Interactual player, but that only plays certain DVDs. I still cant get the miniDVD disk to play on my Mac.

 

What do I have to do to get it to play. And then to get it into FCP, do I have to convert it?

 

If only he shot his stuff on miniDV like everyone else.

 

Thanks

[Tim Brown]

You'll need to check here to see if the hardware is compatible as you'll need the cam for ingest into FCP.

Edited April 11, 2008 by Tim Brown

[Keneu Luca]

Somebody also told me that Toast can convert a miniDVD TS file into avi.

 

Any info on this?

 

Thank you

[Dax McKeever]

Somebody also told me that Toast can convert a miniDVD TS file into avi.

 

Any info on this?

 

Thank you

 

 

I'm not too experienced with miniDVD, but I believe I was once informed "it was a mistake when they made it". They thought they would create a new generation, like 8-track-cassete-VHS-compact disc-DVD, but miniDVD just was a failure due to those who wanted to maintain their dvd/cd files.

that's just my fyi, however, i guess clearly some of us are using miniature discs

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

If by miniDVD you mean the small 80mm discs used in some consumer video cameras, it can be done, but it isn't particularly quick or easy. Usually they are designed to be playable in DVD players and that's what I'll assume is the case here. If you have something else, god knows, beyond just playing it back in the camera and capturing it from whatever output it has.

 

If my assumption is correct, though, the procedure is more or less the same as for recovering video from commercial DVDs. This means that the necessary software may be of dubious legality in some parts of the world, particularly in the US, even when used for a noninfringing purpose. Either way, there are various DVD rippers around which will give you various results. Some will attempt to turn the DVD into an AVI file or Quicktime movie, some will just demux the MPEG-2 video and whatever audio it has, which will be either PCM or AC3. Remuxing and retiming audio, regardless, can be a bit of a chore.

 

It's really too much for me to go into here in detail - you should double check it actually is a conventional DVD, something on which you can see a VIDEO_TS folder containing one or more IFO, BUP and VOB files. If so, have a look round for the necessary conversion software and ask again if you need to.

 

P

[Adrian Sierkowski]

As far as I know there is no way to get the data into FCP. The problem is either the disk is not finalized, in which case it won't read in a computer, or it is finalized, in which case it turns to a .vob file, which you might drag into FCP. Basically, though you'd need to finalize the disk and then find a DVD~Mov or AVI ripper and hope that it works.

Those little cameras are a pain in the. . ..

 

some of them come with software, and you could just find out what camera s/he used to shoot on and google for it's manual.

[Keneu Luca]

Thank you Adrian, Phil, Dax, and Tim.

 

This is the small DVDs, a little smaller than an average DVD. Yeah I know this technology never took off. Like I said it is a friend's camera; footage he recorded before I was a part of the equation. The camera does NOT have a firewire port.

 

I am still investigating and I will put your suggestions to use.

 

Thanks again everyone.