[scottajronan]

My brother recently had someone make a DVD of his wedding and they did a rubbish job and never even put in any chapter marks let alone menus. So my Brother has asked me to re edit it and put in a few menus and chapters. So what I need to know is how I can get the video and audio from the DVD into iMovie or iDVD so that I can add chapters, menus and some photos. I have been able to open the VOB files in the video_ts folder and view them using an app called VLC. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

[Krusty]

Unless I'm mistaken, you have a lot of work ahead of you. You will have to rip the DVD content from the DVD, then convert it to a format that iMovie can manipulate, THEN cut/splice/re-edit and export from iMovie to iDVD
To rip DVD content, you can use MacTheRipper, OSex, mpeg2decX, and a52decX ....MTR extracts DVD content into files usable by mpeg2decX, (which can convert a DV stream usable by iMovie) OSex will rip audio into a format the a52decX can convert to aiff (usable by iMovie).

Hate to tell you, but none of these tools are effortless to use. Tinkering around with the settings takes a while (especially with OSEx .. lots of little things you'll need to pay attention too to get the results you want and ONLY the results you want). Once you know what you're doing with these tools, things can go quickly -- but it looks like you'll have to do all the learning with all of them before you can do your first DVD.

I rarely use iDVD so perhaps there is a quicker way to get from point A to point B that I'm missing. But, these are the tools that seem to be widely used by me and others in the forum when working with DVDs. I would recommend extracting a single, short chapter from a commercial DVD first and using it to learn the process and test your results before attempting to work with your friend's entire DVD. Many of the conversions take a long time, so you'll want to try it out with something a little more manageable first.

Best of Luck.

[edit]
Just thinking .. do you have access to the original DV footage? Maybe importing that straight into iMovie would be your best choice if you can swing it. If the guy who made the DVD could let you have that, you could skip all the above hassle.
[/edit]

[Rev-O]

I believe quicktime pro will convert to DV as well. Hope you have a bunch of free hd space. DV is a pig.

[Krusty]

Originally posted by Rev-O:
I believe quicktime pro will convert to DV as well. Hope you have a bunch of free hd space. DV is a pig.

Yes, it will .... but it can't read the .vob files from DVDs natively. That's where mpeg2decX comes in. It reads the .vob and then actually uses the QT engine for export (eg. the export options of mpeg2decX are just a regular QT pro export dialog -- including DV). It's specifically a .vob importing and a QT exporting program (hope Apple finally adds .vob reading ability to the next version of QT Pro and iMovie ... it'd save a TON of time and work in situations like this).

scottajronan, listen to Rev-O regarding the size of DV. You realize that each 9.5 minutes of DV will take up 2 gigs of space, yes ? Make sure you have enough space for all that plus enough space for the .vob files from the DVD. An hour of DV + an hour of .vob will require upwards of 15 gigs of free hard drive space.

Basically, the flow of what you want to do goes like this:
Video:
MacTheRipper: extracts .vob files, removes region encoding and DVD encryption and copies the unencrypted .vob to your hard drive.
mpeg2decX: takes the unencrpyted .vob and converts into any QT format you chose. It can also crop/resize/set frame rates and data rates etc. But for use in iMovie->iDVD you'll want to go with a full-bore DV export or you will end up losing quality.

Audio
OSEx: extracts the DVD's audio in AC3 format. (OSEx can also do the video but pretty much duplicates what MacTheRipper does but is far more complex to use, IMHO)
a52decX: converts AC3 audio to aiff/wav/mp3. You'll want to go with full-bore aiff for use in iMovie.

You then will have raw, full quality files to use in iMovie and iDVD as you normally would. Its not going to be simple or quick.

[Lebodde]

I just read this post and I had a similar issue. But I need to import an extract from a comercial DVD and edit it. It sounds like it would be a real chore to do it in iMovie. Is it any easier to do it in Final Cut Pro?

Thank you very much.

[kennedy]

There is a much easier way to accomplish the original question:

DVD->MP4: HandBrake - http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/21117
MP4 -> DV: QuickTime Pro

Drag the DV file into iMovie... done.

[Krusty]

Originally posted by kennedy:
There is a much easier way to accomplish the original question:

DVD->MP4: HandBrake - http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/21117
MP4 -> DV: QuickTime Pro

Drag the DV file into iMovie... done.

There are many ways to do it quickly .. including the one you mentioned. However, the idea was to not lose quality. Converting it to mp4 then back to DV would be similar to converting an aiff to mp3 and then converting it back to aiff -- you'd be compressing raw DVD footage to a lossy, compressed format (mp4). Once you converted that mp4 back to DV, the DV will be of the same lossy quality as the mp4 source -- you can't re-add the quality once its been lost in Handbrake's DVD->mp4 conversion.

Having said that. Handbrake is a great tool for what it does. I've used it numerous times to make mp4 QT movies directly from DVD.
From the Handbrake FAQ:

2.1 I want to convert a movie so I can burn it on a VCD or a DVD-R. Is HandBrake the right application to do this?
No. HandBrake only outputs MPEG-4, no MPEG-1 or MPEG-2. If you are using OS X, have a look at forty-two, ffmpegX, DVDRemaster or DVD2oneX. This will save you time and quality.

2.2 I want to to convert a movie so I can edit it in iMovie. Is HandBrake the right application to do this?
No. MPEG-4 isn't a good format for editing, you'd better find a way to extract it as MJPEG or something, or edit the MPEG-2 directly.

[Uncle Skeleton]

There are programs made just for this purpose. DVDxDV comes to mind.

Furthermore if you're willing to tinker a little, I would suggest that you skip iMovie all together and just re-author your DVD with the same MPEG streams in a program like Sizzle or DVD Studio Pro. Adding chapter marks and menus does not require you re-render (twice) the entire content of the movie.