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Mac Technical Help for Fan-Editors A Beginners Guide

Mollo

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Mac Technical Help for Fan-Editors

A Beginners Guide

Please feel free to add or correct the information presented here.

1. The Original DVD

I would recommend that the source DVD should be NTSC format. Americans design most software for Mac so it generally works better with NTSC. PAL only adds to the myriad of problems associated with Fan-Editing on a Mac and is of noticeably lesser quality.

2. Ripping The DVD

Mac The Ripper is a good free tool.

http://www.mactheripper.org/

MacTheRipperScreenshot.jpg


Wondershare DVD Copy works well.

http://www.dvd-ripper-copy.com/dvd-copy-mac.html

dvd-copy-mac-sc.jpg


Wondershare DVD Ripper can rip a Video file in nearly all formats (AVI, QuickTime, MPEG-4 etc) directly from the DVD.

http://www.wondershare.com/multimedia/m ... ipper.html

dvd-ripper-mac-sc.jpg


Cinematize Pro 2 can copy a DVD and convert the file into a QuickTime movie. (It does not work with copy protected DVD source material).

http://www.miraizon.com/products/cine2profeatures.html

Cinematize_Pro_2.gif


3. Video Conversion

VisualHub is a fantastic Mac Application. It can convert almost any video format into a format that your Mac will then be able process. For example it can convert an AVI file into a QuickTime Final Cut format so editing can start almost immediately.

http://www.techspansion.com/visualhub/

VisualHub%20Screen%20Shot.jpg


4. Mac Video Editing Software

iMovie

iMovie is a domestic editing application, which is good for quick home movies but difficult and unreliable with longer Fan-Edits. If you are going to use iMovie for a Fan-Edit then save the project every 5 minutes, religiously as it often crashes.

Final Cut Express

Final Cut Express is a professional editing program and works very well but for a bug that has been fixed for Final Cut Pro 6 users but not for Final Cut Express users. (A bug, which stops perfectly good projects from opening after they have been saved).

Final Cut Studio 2

Final Cut Studio 2 is the best Mac Video Editing option but the price reflects this. It comes with Final Cut Pro 6 editing program, which is pretty much the same as the Express version but with more plug-ins and options. This package also comes with Motion 3 (animation program), Soundtrack Pro (audio editing), Compressor 3 (change bit-rates etc), Color (color correction tool), DVD Studio Pro 4 (DVD authoring software).

5. DVD Authoring on a Mac

iDVD

iDVD does quite a good job at authoring a DVD but bit-rates can be very low as audio is set to PCM, which takes up a lot of DVD space.

iDVD comes with themes that can be personalized but I recommend that you "Save as Disc Image" once the DVD is complete and burn the DVD using the Disc Utility Application. The reason for this is that there seems to be less glitches with the final DVD when burnt this way. Using the iDVD Application to burn a DVD takes more time and is susceptible to a host of problems.

DVD Studio Pro

DVD Studio Pro only comes as part of Final Cut Studio 2 but has lots of options when authoring a DVD and so can create a much more professional DVD. It is also possible to add a commentary track, which is impossible with iDVD.

Toast 9

Toast 9 has some great features and can author a DVD but it has only a few themes. Users are squarely divided as to its reliability and performance.

6. Final Point

Finally, the main problem with iMovie and Final Cut is that the files once saved are huge, anything up to 20GB for a 1 Hour and 20 min film, so you need to think of external hard drives or plan very carefully if you have limited disc space.
 

JMB

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This is excellent advice.

I edit on a Mac and I use Mac the Ripper and Cinematize for ripping and converting.

I actually edited my Batman Begins: Dark Cut in iMovie. While it turned out great in the end, for an edit this complex I would recommend using Final Cut. It is definitely more difficult to learn, but worth it in the end. Besides, you can actually do pro projects if you become a FC whiz- no one will hire you to edit something in iMovie!

iMovie is O.K. for smaller edits without a lot of cuts/audio work to be done. But as Mollo said, it will freeze up on you, or become jerky very quickly. Very annoying. Because of it's limited capacity, I had to cut Batman in sections, bounce them down to DV, then eventually piece them together as one. It took a lot of advance thinking, and I pushed iMovie to its limits (and beyond) for sure. Because I had very little disk space, I had to commit to the new version each time I saved. Mollo's advice about having a lot of disk space available is right on. My project ended up being over 30G!

iDVD isn't that great for burning. I had some problems with it and the final picture quality wasn't all that great. I used Toast a couple of times, it works OK. But as Mollo says, limited menu options.

I eventually took the project my friend the Final Cut editor for help with encoding and burning. He used Squeeze to compress, he says he likes it a lot. It produced a very good quality picture. I can't remember what we used for burning.

This is a great topic. It would be cool if we could have some tutorials for building DVD menus and authoring on a Mac as well!
 

JMB

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Another point regarding iMovie vs Final Cut, FC has multiple audio tracks available; iMovie only has two.
 

Grievous Angel Draven

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Well, I think iMovie will suffice for my purposes, until I can upgrade to Final Cut.
 

JMB

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Something else to consider in iMovie is the titles. For some reason if you don't send the project through to iDVD for authoring, the titles will not render and be jagged looking. iDVD does the render somewhere in the authoring stages, Toast does not.
 

Mollo

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The titles in iMovie (as with Final Cut Pro's program LiveType) appear to be "jagged" when looking at them on a computer screen. When the movie is finished and then watched on a normal TV screen this "Jagged appearance" does not occur.

I was concerned by this to begin with but was informed by Mac Forums that this is in fact the case. Strange but true!
 

JMB

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Yes, when the DVD is finished, they will not appear jagged provided you burn the disc through iDVD. I tried burning it through Toast and the finished movie titles were unrendered.

But I will try again with Toast just to make sure I didn't muck something up and report back the result.
 

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A few extra programs for the converting process:


Diva is a great MPEG-2 converting program. Through it only outputs video, it can encode MPEG-2 video into anything Quicktime supports and it's free. Works well in conjunction with:



MPEG Streamclip. Needs MPEG-2 Componant for Quicktime for full potential, but works well with other forms of video as well.

Probably should grab the Perian Quicktime Plugin to give Quicktime even more compatability with various media formats.



ffmpegX is another swiss army knife video program that works well.

My procedure for setting up video for editing (ripping with Mactheripper):

-Convert video to DV using Diva (remember to check the force constant framerate tab)
or
-Convert video to HD Apple Intermediate using Diva (same deal)

-Convert .ac3 audio to .aiff stereo/surround audio using either Quicktime Pro, MPEG Streamclip, or A.Pack (an .ac3 conversion software that comes with DVD Studio Pro. Can also matrix surround sound up to 5.1)

Post editing:

-Convert video to MPEG-2 using either Quicktime Pro or ffmpegx
-Convert audio to .ac3 using A.Pack or ffmpegx
-Mux and create menu's on DVD Studio Pro
-Burn
 

JMB

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Nice Tubes, well done! We'll build up the mac guides slowly but surely... keep them coming!
 

Tubes

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If anyone needs a free Mac DVD Authorer, Sizzle works well. While you lose motion menus from iDVD, you gain the ability to encode your video using a different program (and Dolby Digital support).

List of Mac video programs
 

Remixed by Jorge

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-Convert video to DV using Diva (remember to check the force constant framerate tab)
or
-Convert video to HD Apple Intermediate using Diva (same deal)

-Convert .ac3 audio to .aiff stereo/surround audio using either Quicktime Pro, MPEG Streamclip, or A.Pack (an .ac3 conversion software that comes with DVD Studio Pro. Can also matrix surround sound up to 5.1)
thank you very much for the guide.
 

Bingowings

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Now that Visual Hub has gone to the software happy hunting ground are there any similar applications around?
 

Q2

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Bingowings said:
Now that Visual Hub has gone to the software happy hunting ground are there any similar applications around?

The Little App Factory has picked up development. It's been renamed to Evom. The link is :http://thelittleappfactory.com/evom/
 

Bingowings

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Thanks Thunderclap, that will hopefully come in very handy.
 
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