Importing DVD to IMovie 08 using MPEG Streamclip

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Importing DVD to IMovie 08 using MPEG Streamclip

I am new at converting video from DVD to iMovie. I have home movies that were converted from 8mm to VHS and then to DVD+R using a Sony converter. The DVD's play in a standard DVD player and my Mac OK. I want to import them into iMovie 08 for editing. From elsewhere on this forum I followed the advice to use the free MPEG Streamclip. I installed MPEG Streamclip 1.9.2 and the Apple Quicktime MPEG Playback Component. When I try to open the DVD from MPEG Streamclip I get the message "File open error: unsupported file type." I tried opening the individual .VOB files with same result. I have Quicktime 7.6. I must be doing something wrong or there is something wrong with my install. Any help would be appreciated.

20" iMac 2007 Intel Aluminum, 15" PowerBook TI 1000GHz, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Mar 2, 2009 11:47 AM

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Answer 1

Mar 2, 2009 1:04 PM in response to i2

Maybe try it this way..demo by Karsten Schluter:
http://web.me.com/akschluter/HowTo/DVDImport_toiM08.html

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Answer 2

i2 Author

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Mar 2, 2009 4:23 PM in response to Beverly Maneatis

This worked and it's easy to do! Great tip!

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Answer 3

i2 Author

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Mar 2, 2009 5:12 PM in response to Beverly Maneatis

There is one little thing with using Karsten Schluter's method of creating a disk image and then importing the DVD to iMovie 08 from the image, . I end up an Event that has identical clips of the video from each DVD for each import. I don't know if these are on my DVD which was made using a Sony VHS to DVD converter. Any ideas on this?

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Answer 4

i2 Author

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Mar 2, 2009 7:19 PM in response to Beverly Maneatis

Well now I realize I am only getting the first clip on the DVD twice. So I don't know what is going on, but this method apparently has problems also.

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Answer 5

Mar 2, 2009 11:41 PM in response to i2

Ok. I will shoot a message to Karsten and see if he will step in and help you.

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Answer 6

caran99

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Mar 3, 2009 6:42 AM in response to Beverly Maneatis

Try Kigo , works for me :
http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/downloads/KigoVideo_Converter_Free_for_Mac_56372p/

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Answer 7

Mar 3, 2009 8:21 AM in response to i2

//sorry Bev for being late.. should read my MM account more often.. 😉 //

Hi i2,

it is just a 'dirty' workaround .. and I tried it just for 'does it work?'-method.. in theory, that copy process I'm discribing, shouldn't double any content..
are you using a 'fresh'/newly created image for each import? or, do you probably miss a .vob when erasing it... =

sorry, I'm of no help here, why you get that doublette.. select it, erase it, problem solved.. 😀

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Answer 8

Mar 3, 2009 8:41 AM in response to Karsten Schlüter

Some DVDs (like those made by iDVD) may have a clip showing up twice. The second one is likely used in the Menu template that people see when they insert the DVD.

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Answer 9

i2 Author

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Mar 3, 2009 3:05 PM in response to Karsten Schlüter

The main problem is that I only get the first part of the movie when I import a DVD to iMovie using the disk image method. The DVD's VIDEO_TS folder has one VIDEO_TS .VOB file and five other .VOB files: VTS 011.VOB, VTS 012.VOB, VTS 013.VOB, VTS 014.VOB, and VTS 015.VOB. Each of the VTS files is the same size (approximately 800 MB). I don't know why there are so many large files of the same size. I'm assuming that each file represents a different portion of the DVD movie. These DVD's were made using a Sony VHS to DVD converter box and I don't know what files the conversion process is creating.

For example, when I import a DVD to iMovie using the disk image method, it shows the movie length at 59 min. but after import the video clip in iMovie is only the first part with a length of 23 min. And I know I'm missing the last part of the movie. For other DVD's these times are different but the iMovie video clip is always the first portion but a different length.

Any ideas?

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Answer 10

Mar 3, 2009 3:20 PM in response to i2

With MPEG Streamclip you can drag these VOB files in individually and you can tell what is going on.

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Answer 11

i2 Author

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Mar 4, 2009 3:16 PM in response to caran99

caran99,

I tried the free Kigo converter, but it didn't accept the .VOB files from my DVD when I dragged them into the input list window. I tried some .mov files and they were accepted. I may have to buy the full-featured Kigo DVD Converter which hopefully can converter the whole DVD without dealing with individual .vob files. Any advice here?

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