[DM-MUG] importing video from a DVD

[Matt Stanton]

DVD video is a sort of confusing deal.  I'm not sure that I really 
understand much more than a sliver of it, but I will attempt a stab at 
it.  First, video on a DVD (standard, anyway... there are also DivX 
DVDs, and they are a whole other matter) is encoded as an mpeg-2 
Transport Stream.  That's what the VIDEO_TS folder has in it.  The .VOB 
files are the different video streams.  On a self-made DVD with no 
menus, trailers, etc, you should have only maybe one or two of these.  
If you download a video player for mac that can play these directly, 
then you could open each one to find out which is the correct video.

There are other files on the DVD, but I have no clue what they really 
do.  I assume that subtitle tracks, alternate audio tracks (Dolby 
Digital, DTS, PCM, and different languages), menu system options, 
playback control, chapter points, and some of the other stuff that DVDs 
are capable of go in those files.  The only thing you'll be interested 
in should be the .VOB files.  You will likely need to transcode them to 
a format that iMovie can work with.  I don't have any experience with 
iMovie, so I can't really help you with it, but it might be possible to 
just stick the dvd in the drive, open iMovie, and select video clips 
from the DVD for it to extract, in which case it should take care of the 
transcoding for you.  Maybe see if iMovie has a way of 'importing' the dvd?

On 4/9/2010 8:47 PM, Jeff Muller wrote:
> I'd like to put together a project in iMovie (my first attempt) using several pieces of video that are on DVDs. Most of these were originally on a broadcast format and were dubbed to VHS and later to DVD (the more recent ones were straight to DVD). All of them will play fine in the iMac's DVD Player. The problem is that when I try to import any of them into iMovie, I get two folders called "VIDEO_RM"&  "VIDEO_TS". Inside those folders are several grayed-out files with cryptic names and extensions like .BUP, .IFO, .DAT, .VOB. I don't have a clue what these are or how to make them available. I've searched thru the Help files but can't find anything that addresses this problem.
>
> What am I doing wrong? Help, please!
>
> Jeff
> _______________________________________________
> DMMUG mailing list
> Use this Address to send mail to the list:
> DMMUG at dmmug.org
> Use this page to modify subscription options:
> http://cialug.org/mailman/listinfo/dmmug
>