[nigelcraft]

Hi,i am in real need of some help,i sadly lost my dad a few weeks ago and we have loads of footage of him that we have recorded using a camcorder,this camcorder uses small dvd-rw to record which we can then playback on the dvd player if we want to,but what im trying to do is take it from the dvd-rw and then put back all of the footage on a normal dvd so i can put all of the footage together,the problem is i really cant figure out how to do it,the manual that comes with it is hopeless,is there a way to take the footage off of the camcorder dvd which i can play on my pc but cant open the footage at all and save it,and then send all the footage that i get off of the dvd's onto just one normal dvd rw,that way my mum can use the camcorder dvds again,i hope this makes sense and that someone can help

Thanks

[senu]

As you can play it on the PC you should be able to explore it in windows
Normal DVD videos have a folder called video_ts , which in turn has vob files which are the video files
Those from a camcorder of Settop DVD recorder may be a little different but the principle is the same,
If you can get into the disc and copy the video files, the rest is software dependent and easy

[jaymac]

Hi yes you can doit this way for free Download this programme DVD shrink
http://www.filehippo.com/download_dvdshrink/
its free once installed just put you r rw in and select copy disc
Once it has copied the disc you then choose Backup . You then have the chouce of how you back it up either to a folder or Iso image or to burn to dvd .I guess you want to put acouple together so for starters I would just choose save as Iso image and note where you save it to. You can do this with each rw you want to copy till you are ready to put them on dvd Please feel free to PM me and I will be happy to walk you through the whole process start to finsh

[senu]

Jaymac , I imagine he should be able to simply copy the video files, onto his HDD from the various discs, and then use a DVD authoring application like DVD movie Factory to compile a "normal " DVD from the video contents from the numerous miniDVD-RW
IMHO, using DVD shrink for doing it in this way is really not for the faint hearted ( I have done it in the past)
but
Certainly it is generous of you to offer help

Another way would be to import the video into an application, ( Movie Factory can do this too) Join them in an editing application before turning all this into full lenght DVD discs for his mother but I was trying to take the queries one step at a time to prevent confusing the issue

[jaymac]

Hi Senu agree its not that straightforward Hence my offer to walk him through it but its also not really difficult

[nigelcraft]

hi thanks everyone for your help ,i will give jaymac's suggestion a go as im pretty good with pc applications but not with camcorders,it sounds very straightforward the way you have suggested so will go away and give it a go and will come back to you when ive had a go and thank you for your offer to walk me through it,will take you up on the offer if i have no joy,thanks everyone again i really appreciate it

[senu]

Just to say; you can save then via DVD shrink as both ISO folders and DVD folders
I would say do both; The DVD folders are the folders which contain the video-ts ( and vob files)
The Vobs being the actual video files
These can be strung together in any video editing or even DVD authoring application to make up a brand new DVD which is made from putting together the files from the various mini DVDs

[nigelcraft]

have managed to do it guys thanks ever so much i really appreciate all the help given here,my mum is really pleased

thanks again

[jaymac]

Great glad you are sorted thanks for letting us know

[nigelcraft]

hi again,another quick question,one of the files i have is just one complete movie with different sections loading one after the other,how can i transfer it into a file that movie maker or another free editing software can read so i can just select one section of the movie then save that on its own which i could then send as for instance a windows media file and send to my sister,dunno if this makes sense at all

[jaymac]

http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/do...aldub_346.html
This is possibly waht you need make sure you scroll down and downloads Virtualdub Mpeg2
Youcan edit your footage in this and then export as AVi which will suit movie maker then you can just convert it to wmv files

[nigelcraft]

thanks a lot downloading now,will give it a go

[nigelcraft]

using that now but says something about no audio compressor so no sound and it seems to be split in two for some reason,looks really complecated help!!!

[jaymac]

Might have to call in the experts on this one.Do you mean you have 2 screens showing thats usual I 've always just imprted the file and then exported as avi never had no Audio cmpressor message and thats with dolby digital you did scroll down to the virtualdub mpeg2 download

[jaymac]

Found this in Vdubs Faq's Also http://forums.virtualdub.org/
is its forum.Though Im sure someone on here will have more idea


No audio decompressor could be found to decompress the source audio format
This will happen when you don’t have an Audio Compression Manager (ACM) for your audio. Again, DirectShow-filters will not work with VirtualDub. The best thing to do is check the file info in VirtualDub and look for the audio tag. Most likely it will be 'tag 2000', which means AC3-audio. For this you can download the AC3ACM.zip from fcchandler. If you encounter another tag you can check for example with the audio codecs list of GSpot to which codec that tag belongs

[nigelcraft]

yes that worked got sound,just got to figure out now how i cut the section out of this video i need,any tips?

[nigelcraft]

ok figured that out now,video is a whoppping 9 gb how can i make it smaller in size?? as its enourmous?

[jaymac]

Ok good for you how big is the section you want to convert to send by email. If the 9 G/ is the size of just the section you want That would be around 40 minutes (is that about right)which is still gonna be a bit big when converted to wmv /
The enormous size alas is what you get with dv-avi wmm will bring it down when you convert to wmv but methinks you are possibly working with too long a file .. Let us know the actual time length you hope to send