Edit Dvd On Mac

viktor

Registered
I'm using a Sony DCR-DVD203E to record handball-matches. The camera uses 8cm (1,4Gb) disks. I need to copy 3 disks to one standard DVD (4,7Gb). I also need to copy and edit the DVD menu. The problem is that all the programs i have tried does not support imports from DVD.

I know that the big video editing programs can do this, but they are expensive. I don't need advanced func. or editing. Just merge and copy.

I hope some of you can help me?

Best regard
Viktor


 
I am not sure if this will work. How does the data content on the 8cm DVD look like? Is there any dv-file? If so, how about copying it on your disk and then use quicktime pro to merge them and burn it with a menu to a DVD using Toast?
And welcome to the forum. :)
 
Viktor,

Its possible to do what you want but its pretty fiddly and time consuming. The format of your camera is not a good choice if you want to edit your movies. I find it frustrating that the manufacturers do not make this clear. The advantage of you camera is that you can take a few shots and look at them via your dvd player. Other camera formats need you to view footage from the camera or to transfer to another format. For people that find this way inconvenient then a DVD camera is the way to go but its not if you want to edit your work!

your DVD's are encoded in MPEG 2, the standard DVD format. Mpeg2 is complicated to edit. In fact video editing is never done in MPEG 2 for this reason. MPEG 2 was designed for DVD, a finished product, to be viewed and not edited (its why I think its madness that its used on a camera!!!). What you will need to do is convert the MPEG2 files to DV or some other suitable format.

There is software out there that "rips" dvd's. It typically copies the data off a DVD and saves it to your computer. This software is typically used for copying DVD's and it will typically re-encode your MPEG2 dvd data so that the movie fits onto a standard DVD-r. Unfortunately this is not really what you want to do:-(

I found these pages on the web which may help you...
http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/mac911/2004/06/000231/index.php
http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/mac911/2004/06/000235/index.php
also this from a forum:
http://macslash.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/27/120224

If you are going to be doing a lot of editing I feel your best bet is capture the movie in an "analogue" way. ie use a capture box connected to your computer via firewire. Play your movie from the camera into the capture box and capture the movie in "real time". This will be quicker than converting MPEG2 to DV (that process can take few hours!).

A suitable capture box would be "Miglia Director’s Cut Analogue to DV converter" They are about £250 in the UK. Have look around the web for other brands and pricing.

I'm sorry but as far as I know there really is no "simple way" (unless someone round here knows otherwise:)
 
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