[olug] Creating clips from DVD

[Matt Anderson]

Do you have the video extracted from the DVD(s)?  I imagine a 3 step  
process for what you describe -- extract video, edit video, write  
video to DVD.

The mencoder binary that is bundled with mplayer can (if all codecs,  
copy protection circumvention and whatnot are installed correctly)  
extract clips from a DVD and transcode them into a format of your  
choosing.  I haven't done this in a couple of years, but some notes I  
dug up on the proper incantation:

(excerpted) options:
   -vop          activate comma separated list of video filters
   -zoom         allow software scaling, will force with -vop scale
   -xy           scale width to x, keep aspect ratio (if x > 8)
   -o            output file
   -oac          encode with given audio codec (mp3lame)
   -lameopts     options to use if encoding mp3
   -ovc          encode with given video codec
   -lavcopts     options to use if encoding with libavcodec
   -ss           seek
   -endpos       stop after some time interval
   -vop lavdeint deinterlace video with libavcodec

   mencoder -dvd 1 -vop scale -zoom -xy 480 -o /tmp/my_video.avi -oac  
mp3lame -lameopts cbr:preset=192 -ovc lavc -lavcopts  
vcodec=mpeg4:vhq:vbitrate=800:keyint=2 -ss 55:28 -endpos 19

will jump to a point supposedly 55 minutes and 28 seconds into the  
clip, encode the video it finds there mpeg4 with mp3 audio, resized  
(proportionately) to a width of 480, for 19 seconds, and write it out  
to the file /tmp/my_video.avi.  I say supposedly as I recall it  
didn't accurately jump there (as measured by say, the mplayer  
timestamp if you were viewing the dvd) -- finding the desired start  
point fell back (for me) to doing binary search (using mplayer -ss  
TIME to see where it started) and eventually finding the right spot.   
Unnecessarily painstaking and annoying, but it did work.

I've never really tried to edit video with a Linux tool -- I have no  
recommendation on that.  I also haven't tried to create a video DVD  
with a Linux tool, so no recommendations there either.  These days,  
I'd do quick editing jobs with Quicktime Pro on a Mac (which I would  
recommend if you have access to / inclination to use a Mac).  Of  
course, if you have access to a Mac, there's also iDVD which would  
probably make short work of step three as well (though I've still  
never tried to do that).

A good resource for these sorts of activities is http:// 
www.videohelp.com/ -- you might find guides there that you find to be  
useful.

Good luck...

--
  Matt Anderson


On May 6, 2006, at 6:36 PM, Lane Roberts wrote:

> Here's the objective:
>  I'm trying to get a compilation of about 5 minutes of clips from a
> dvd spliced together onto a dvd that will pause between each clip(its
> for a presentation).
>
> I've never really done anything with video before, so this is a
> learning experience, but does anyone have any pointers or (better yet)
> a direct guide?
> Google has been somewhat helpful, but everything I've found so far is
> about going directly to AVI, and I don't need to do that.
> Thanks
> Lane
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