Page 1 of Panasonic E55 DVDs & PC Editing...

Hi

I am working through my vhs and analogue camcorder transfer to DVD via my new E55. All is going well so far. The disks have been playing back in a variety of DVD players and PC DVD ROMs.

Soon I would like to start editing the DVD content on my PC. I have a couple questions...

- What format is the data on my newly created dvd-r? I was expecting to see it (on the pc) listed as .mpg but found that the disk contained loats of different types of data.

- Will Nero (or an equivalent) convert the DVD data to a format that can me emailed (i.e. as with small .mpgs?) and easily viewed by others?

Thanks for any feedback!

Patrick

Hi Patrick,

Difficult to know where to start!! It looks as though you are currently transferring directly to DVD-R on the E55. It`s not clear from what you say whether you want to just transfer existing footage to DVD (+ other formats) with maybe the odd menu or two (using a DVD authoring package like Ulead Moviefactory 3), or whether you want to delve into editing the video in more creative ways (adding titles, effects, transitions between scenes etc) before authoring the final video.

Anyway, to answer your questions...
1. You should find that your DVD-Rs contain a folder called Video_TS. All of the multiplexed video and audio content are held here. The mpeg video is held in the VOB files, in fact most PC based DVD players e.g. WinDVD (and some standalone DVD players) can play the VOB files directly. To save repeating a lot of info that is already out there on the web, try looking here for all the info you could ever need on DVDs and their file structure!!

2. Video data tends to be very space hungry, and that is certainly the case with DVD video (although DV video from DV camcorders is even more so). Even using the e55`s EP (6hr not 8hr) mode that equates to approx 13Mb per min of video. For email purposes you are probably looking at converting this to a more compressed video format e.g. asf, mpg4 or divx. Again, for ways to convert from DVD to one of these formats check the above link.

Hope this has helped in some way.

ddevil

This item was edited on Wednesday, 9th June 2004, 00:02

Thanks ddevil

I hope to eventually add titles, transitions between scenes etc as soon as I have all the content on DVD.

I looked briefly yesterday (before posting) at the contents of the folder created on the DVD by the E55. I was sure there was no .mpg anywhere in the folder but I will take a closer look this evening.

I`ll also take a look at Ulead MovieFactory 3. Can you suggest any other editing software that may be useful?

Thanks!

The DVD`s the Panasonic makes are like any DVD. The video is split into vob files which will have to be "ripped" from the disc and copied to your hard drive. A full disc will be no more than about 4.4Gb no matter what time the disc is. You will then have a few vob files with the video on. This is where I`m not sure how you will edit your video as the vob files are not connected. You may have to join them all together for your editing software to see one file, I`m not sure? try it and see.

The other option is to copy your videos to DVD-Ram disc and then with a DVD-rom drive that reads DVD-Ram (about £30) you can access the video as one file which is a lot easier. I use it to record music videos and then use a program called "Mpeg2VCR" to cut the video DIRECTLY from the disc and save.

I have the E50

Thanks for all the info.

I`m starting to get to grips with the data structure of dvds now after trawling through a few FAQs etc.

I tried Ulead Moviefactory (trial) and found it did the job brilliantly (converting to mpeg) so I may invest in that when I have all my analogue to dvd copying done.