Final Cut Express 4

DeinReich · Post by **DeinReich** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 9:57 am

No, I haven't. Does it rip right protected discs? I haven't bothered since it is in beta form.

mahler · Post by **mahler** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 3:40 am

I have used Mac The Ripper to rip many protected disks. Never any problems. I hear that some DVDs (like from Sony) have unique protection and that might be a problem, but so far I haven't attempted to rip such disks.

obh04 · Post by **obh04** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 4:42 pm

I use MacTheRipper to rip my anime DVDs. From what I remember I have not had a problem with protection.

gotenks794 · Post by **gotenks794** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 6:19 pm

When I try to convert vobs to DV, MPEG streamclip says it needs the MPEG 2 playback component thing. It only costs $20, but is there a free-er way?

mahler · Post by **mahler** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 12:06 am

No, there is not a free-er way with MPEG Streamclip on the Mac.

You can convert MPEG-2 files to DV by using ffmpegX ($15 shareware), but MPEG Streamclip lets you select just the scenes you want to convert to DV (instead of the whole VOB file). Also, MPEG Streamclip is pretty good about making a DV file which retains its aspect ratio within Final Cut. Meaning, if you select the 16:9 setting, Final Cut will open the DV file as 16:9—you won't have to manually adjust it. I've not been able to get DV files made in ffmpegX to do that.

kmv · Post by **kmv** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 6:52 pm

gotenks794 wrote:is there a free-er way?

Yes. Avidemux is free and is a tool that is a lot like Avisynth but with fewer plug-ins. I really like it actually.

Two words of warning:

Surfer (who builds the Mac version) just moved to Leopard, and he hasn't quite got his build environment up to snuff, his latest build v2.4.3 (his first build on Leopard) has a few UI quirks.
Its DV codec currently only supports 720x576 @25fps. Which means that you will almost certainly have to re-sample your video - but there is a filter built into Avidemux that will do that for you.

mahler · Post by **mahler** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 10:37 pm

I've tried the Avidemux, and it is interesting, but as kmv says, it only deals with PAL footage. Converting NTSC to PAL (at least in the tests I've tried) has not been too impressive. I noticed a quality loss. But, if someone can write a tutorial which can outline how to avoid quality loss, I'd love to learn more about it!

The plug-ins in Avidemux are really nice, and I often put my finished, edited video through Avidemux to make an XviD file for distribution.

YouTube · Post by **Kionon** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 4:13 am

Use my avisynth method and then plop the HUFFYs in FCE? FCP takes them, that I know once Perian or the Huffyuv decoder component is installed. I don't know FCE well though.

gotenks794 · Post by **gotenks794** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 8:03 am

You mean with Crossover? Yes shall try it...

mahler · Post by **mahler** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 2:01 am

FCE may accept HuffYUV, but it's just going to render it down to DV in the timeline. (If you have your project set up as DV. There is no option to setup as HuffYUV in FCE.) But sure, I guess that would work. Not sure if there would be any quality push, compared to just converting to DV in the first place . . .