Importing media advice

[retep]

Hi
i have a lot of home video content on dvd's which i have compiled over the years and i want to do some additional editing to this content. what are my options for importing this into the pc for editing? for example is my only option capturing it again by playing it from an external dvd player through a capture card into the pc? or my prefered method of playing/capturing it directly from the pc's dvd drive.
is there any software ex. premiere elements 2 that will allow this method of import or is there no short cut.

thanks

[Brian110507]

Yes - there are two options available to you - providing the DVDs are your own work and do not have any copyright protection on them.

One - is to put the DVD in the DVD player tray of your PC and using "My Computer" locate all the .vob files on it - transfer these to your hard drive and change the extension from .vob to .mpg - - You should then be able to simply use any video editing programme which can edit mpeg video ( some don't do a good job with mpeg - one which does a very good job is Ulead VideoStudio) to re-edit, add music, titles etc and then burn new DVDs.

Two - you can use a programme which will import your video direct from the disc into the timeline of the programme for editing. One programme which will do that is Ulead VideoStudio. Again put the disc in your PC DVD tray - from within the programme choose "Import DVD" and follow the prompts to again have your video in the timeline for editing etc. etc. and burn a DVD.

You can learn more about VideoStudio and get a one month free trial download from here :-

http://www.ulead.co.uk/vs/runme.htm

.

[retep]

thanks for that info, very helpful.

Are you aware if "premiere elements 2" has the ability to capture straight from the pc dvd tray?. i am slightly more familliar with that product than ulead. no problem if not, i'll buy ulead as it seems to offer me just what i need.

thanks again

[Brian110507]

I don't think Premiere can (not sure) but I think Pinnacle Studio will also capture direct from DVD - with Premiere you could just use the extension change method.