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Digital meltdown! Reel & Archiving :wacko:


Alfeo Dixon

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Ok, I hate this process... I wish I could just pass it off to someone, but I can't.

 

1) I need to RIP from commercial DVD's, burned DVD's

 

2) Once ripped, what is the best codec I should use to archive all my footage for future use.

 

3) What's the best settings to work with in FCP for editing a reel for at least a 720 resolution or should I go for 1080?

 

Ideally, I would like to stay at the best resolution and down res if needed. I know this will mean an uprez for my NTSC material or transcoding the bits I need.

 

I do have Final Cut Studio 2 with Compressor, so if there are presets with in that you suggest, then I'm all over it...

 

 

-Alfeo

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Ok, I hate this process... I wish I could just pass it off to someone, but I can't.

 

1) I need to RIP from commercial DVD's, burned DVD's

 

2) Once ripped, what is the best codec I should use to archive all my footage for future use.

 

3) What's the best settings to work with in FCP for editing a reel for at least a 720 resolution or should I go for 1080?

 

Ideally, I would like to stay at the best resolution and down res if needed. I know this will mean an uprez for my NTSC material or transcoding the bits I need.

 

I do have Final Cut Studio 2 with Compressor, so if there are presets with in that you suggest, then I'm all over it...

 

 

-Alfeo

 

some forums frown on the word rip because it is short for rip off.

 

However, if you are ripping footage that somehow relates to you, as in you were the DP, set designer, lighting director, camera operator, etc, then it is probably not frowned upon to use the word rip.

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if you are ripping footage that somehow relates to you, as in you were the DP, set designer, lighting director, camera operator, etc, then it is probably not frowned upon to use the word rip.

Absolutely, all legitimate use... it is the most widely used term for taking commercial use (which I did purchase btw) DVD to digital file format. Unfortunately most production companies will give you a DVD copy even though you specificately asked for an uncompressed digital file.

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Ok, I hate this process... I wish I could just pass it off to someone, but I can't.

 

1) I need to RIP from commercial DVD's, burned DVD's

 

2) Once ripped, what is the best codec I should use to archive all my footage for future use.

 

3) What's the best settings to work with in FCP for editing a reel for at least a 720 resolution or should I go for 1080?

 

Ideally, I would like to stay at the best resolution and down res if needed. I know this will mean an uprez for my NTSC material or transcoding the bits I need.

 

I do have Final Cut Studio 2 with Compressor, so if there are presets with in that you suggest, then I'm all over it...

 

 

-Alfeo

What do you mean by "rip"?

 

The .VOB files on a DVD are just standard MPEGII with a bit of extra information added (subtitles etc). In most cases if you copy the files onto your computer and change the .vob suffix to .mpg, any software that can handle MPEGII should be able to handle them (in many cases you don't even need to rename them).

 

Of course this won't work if the disc is copy protected.

 

If that is the case you would need to first make a "backup" of the DVD using a DVD copying program, which may be illegal depending on your local laws. This would then have no copy protection so your DVD drive would then be able to read it. Actually, most of the popular copying programs give the option of copying the files direct to your hard disk. (Many such programs are available as a 30 free trial download, which might be enough for your purposes).

 

If your editing software can't handle MPEGII files, (unlikley) you can use one of the freeware utilities such as "Super" from http://www.erightsoft.com which can basically convert anything to anything. High-Bitrate DV is probably your best bet.

 

There is little point in archiving your footage in anything other than the format it is currently in.

Why not just make some copies of the DVDs using "archival quality" DVD blanks?

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What do you mean by "rip"?

... the word rip because it is short for rip off.

The .VOB files on a DVD are just standard MPEGII with a bit of extra information added (subtitles etc). In most cases if you copy the files onto your computer and change the .vob suffix to .mpg, any software that can handle MPEGII should be able to handle them (in many cases you don't even need to rename them).

This I did not know... and trying now with FCP, it will only play the first 1% and then end. But VLC will play all of the clip.

There is little point in archiving your footage in anything other than the format it is currently in.

Why not just make some copies of the DVDs using "archival quality" DVD blanks?

More so for having high quality digital files that are uncompressed and all in the same codec and resolution. This should make it easier to go back and reuse in editing down the line.

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You can do it with the commandline tool mplayer, and its -dumpvideo option. There are some limitations to doing that - you'll get an uncompressed file, and it's slightly tricky (though not impossible) to make it grab just a short section of the video file. There are websites that describe doing this better than I can here, and google is your friend. This technique will get you video that's as good as it was on the DVD.

 

Personally I'd store it uncompressed, since SD isn't really that big or difficult by modern standards and you really don't want to slap another layer of compression on top of what was already on the DVD, especially if you're then going to re-DVD it or encode it for the web when you distribute it.

 

There are a wide variety of tools for extracting video from DVDs if this nuts and bolts approach doesn't appeal.

 

P

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Ok, I hate this process... I wish I could just pass it off to someone, but I can't.

 

1) I need to RIP from commercial DVD's, burned DVD's

 

2) Once ripped, what is the best codec I should use to archive all my footage for future use.

 

3) What's the best settings to work with in FCP for editing a reel for at least a 720 resolution or should I go for 1080?

 

Ideally, I would like to stay at the best resolution and down res if needed. I know this will mean an uprez for my NTSC material or transcoding the bits I need.

 

I do have Final Cut Studio 2 with Compressor, so if there are presets with in that you suggest, then I'm all over it...

 

 

-Alfeo

 

 

There's 2 apps I use for exactly this. DVDxDV (http://www.dvdxdv.com/) and HandBrake (http://handbrake.fr/) Handbrake is free and works pretty well. I have found strange sync issues in DVDxDV, and it does really wacky stuff sometimes on the timeline in FCP. Give Handbrake a try.

 

as for settings you have several options, but I wouldnt cut in 1080 at all since the material is far from its original source. 720 has been fine with HB, but sometimes I get weird interlacing even when all the settings should check out. It takes a little trial and error, but works out ok. You can check out my reel below. Those files came from multiple format sources.

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There's 2 apps I use for exactly this. DVDxDV (http://www.dvdxdv.com/) and HandBrake (http://handbrake.fr/) Handbrake is free and works pretty well. I have found strange sync issues in DVDxDV, and it does really wacky stuff sometimes on the timeline in FCP. Give Handbrake a try.

 

as for settings you have several options, but I wouldnt cut in 1080 at all since the material is far from its original source. 720 has been fine with HB, but sometimes I get weird interlacing even when all the settings should check out. It takes a little trial and error, but works out ok. You can check out my reel below. Those files came from multiple format sources.

I had bought DVDxDV after having good results from the trial version and also used HandBrake, but for some reason, I can't get either one of them to produce good results. I agree that 720 should be a happy medium to cut the HD and the SD work together.

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However, if you are ripping footage that somehow relates to you, as in you were the DP, set designer, lighting director, camera operator, etc, then it is probably not frowned upon to use the word rip.

 

In the old days, we always used to let anyone who worked on a show have access to the broadcast quality masters. We still do, but now our legal department requires them to sign an agreement saying it's just for their show reel. Then we send the HDSR masters to the post facility where they were made and give the OK for the person to dub or online from them. Theoretically it's on their nickel, but typically the post houses give them freebies.

 

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

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In the old days, we always used to let anyone who worked on a show have access to the broadcast quality masters. We still do, but now our legal department requires them to sign an agreement saying it's just for their show reel. Then we send the HDSR masters to the post facility where they were made and give the OK for the person to dub or online from them. Theoretically it's on their nickel, but typically the post houses give them freebies.

 

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

 

 

Man that would be sweet.

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I had bought DVDxDV after having good results from the trial version and also used HandBrake, but for some reason, I can't get either one of them to produce good results. I agree that 720 should be a happy medium to cut the HD and the SD work together.

 

 

I have found they can be kinda buggy. But, once you lock in good settings with HB, it seems to work ok. not the greatest, but workable.

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@Alfeo Dixon

 

The best codecs would be divx/xvid/h.264 for archive.

 

720 resolution is fine for a domestic mac. 1080 is a computer killer unless you are equipped with 2 separate processors and 8GB of ram.

 

Handbrake is really strong with dvd's. It can do the job.

 

For encoding I would recommend Compressor, VisualHub, QuickTime Pro is one of my favourite and ffmpegX.

 

I have not used Compressor in a while but could you give me a list of presets so I can choose the best for you to use.

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