Collecting video clips for DVD

[Tim Vasquez]

This has some relevance to chase footage, so I figure I'll pose the question: Every day it seems the blogs are raving about a hilarious or entertaining video clip, and I've decided I want to start collecting them and putting them on DVD, to entertain ourselves or guests. I've found I can do them one by one by using WinAVI and then burning them with DVD Shrink, but now I want to make "collections" of multiple videos on one DVD.

So... I'm wondering what's the best format to store the clips in, something that converts rapidly to VOB. Can you just shuffle VOB files around, or does that not work? (I know you've got to be careful to keep the filenames straight).

Is MP2 (?) format the way to go? And what's a good (cheap/no spyware) authoring program that can take a bunch of these files and rip them to a big VOB? Programs like Premiere are cool, but I think they're way overkill.

Tim

 

[Mickey Ptak]

I have googled all over the place but really couldn’t find anything that would allow one to simply select a group of mpeg files and just convert them to .VOB files. So I am no help there. That would be great if there is one out there.

I have always had problems with MPEG2 files. They just do not look as good when I finally author the disk. So I always capture my video in .avi. That is just my personal preference though.

If you want something quick and easy I would use Studio 9. All you do in import the clips, drag and drop them to the timeline, and compile the disc. Considering you do not want to do anything fancy with these, IMO that would work well for you. Plus you can download the trial version to see if it works for you.

Hope that answers at least some of your questions.

Mick

 

[John Diel]

Tim,

When I'm bringing in multiple clips in various formats, the Consumer Grade NLE's usually will do the trick rather well. They generally aren't overly expensive and most, if not all will do DVD. Microsofts offering (The Freebie one, it's name escapes me) is probably a good bet.

Mpeg 2 format is the default format for DVD. AVI files give you the best quality before compression. Mpeg 2 is probably a good bet for storage as it will require no additional compression for rendering and compiling new creations.

There are programs that will convert VOB files to AVI, MP1, 2, etc... but I don't think that's what your looking for. As far as moving them around on the structure, Remember, for a DVD to read in a player, there are lead-ins and lead outs that bring everything together. So simply moving them around on the DVD without a recompile is probably not a good idea.

Most software will compile everything for you in the current DVD format code anyway, so it's really moot. If your DVD Player (Computer) is already associated with the VOB files, it will probably play them. The DVD player connected to the TV is a little bit dumber and may not. You can try and find out though.

Hope that helped.

John

 

[Gerard Jebaily]

Are we talking about Storm Footage bloopers? I dont have anything to contribute but i would enjoy watching them .

 

[Josh Durkee]

This site has EVERYTHING you should ever want to learn about creating DVDs or videos in general:

http://www.videohelp.com/

Hope that helps!