I’m an old dodger and would like to learn how to extract out a scene from a movie (say, the gopher scene in Caddyshack) to share - the way I see them on YouTube.
It is second nature to “the kids these days” but how does an old fogey go about learning this stuff? What are some of the easier programs to learn for a newbie?
The problem is that I don’t think there is a single program to do what you want. You need, most likely, three programs and lots of empty disk space. It might help for suggestions if you let us know what your operating system is. I recommend just doing a project as the steps are all easily findable on the internet. Versiontracker is a great website for finding the various programs you need by searching “rip DVD”, “convert video format”, “video editing”.
The first step is ripping the DVD and these are usually stand alone hard to find programs due to questional legality.
The second step is transcoding it from MPEG2 (DVD format) to an easier format to deal with and also chopping the files into smaller chunks to deal with, say 5 minutes. ffmpeg is a very common program for all operating systems.
The third step is editing- which is cutting out the pieces you want an rearranging them as well as putting in subtitles, titles, and music. Apple has a nice simple program (iMovie) that ships on their computers to do this last part. Most editors can do to the transcoding/conversion from DVD formats but they can’t handle the long file times as they make massive files. An editor will be able to easily output to a variety of file formats for putting on the internet or whatever use.
Thanks, Dish. It seems I just need to jump to Part III; the movies themselves already exist in .avi or .mp4 format. I am on a Mac but, much to my chagrin, a “geek friend” incorrectly assumed I would never want or need iMovie and deleted all its files.
I have tried to go back and re-download them to no avail. Seems I may have to wait until I upgrade as I am currently running Leopard. Not sure I want to pay for Snow Leopard…
Do you have the original install discs?
If so, you can get the iLife components from there.
Or, just ask a Mac friend to lend you his discs.
If you just want to do really simple clip edits (cutting out one part of a larger video, never doing any combinations of multiple clips, titles, etc.), you can probably get by with MPEG Streamclip.
Thanks, Sharding - I’m trying it out and, oddly, when I open an .avi file into its program, it only shows 30 minutes worth of data. I can open the same file with VLC and see that it is all there though! It must be that one file is corrupt as others seem to be just fine.
Now I’ll have to go through their tutorial to see how to clip out just a scene or two! But it is a good start - appreciate it!
It’s only $29.00.
But you should be able to recover the files, as mentioned earlier, from your (or a friend’s) install CD. Also, if you live near an Apple store, they can do it for you, although I don’t know what they’d charge. Upgrading to Snow Leopard might be cheaper.
Be careful.
I’m pretty sure that iLife does not come with upgrade install discs, only new machines.
I’m pretty sure the Snow Leopard upgrade isn’t going to come with iMovie. iMovie is part of iLife, which is not packaged as part of the OS. Some computers come with it, but if you just buy the OS, it’s not going to be included. Snow Leopard is a nice upgrade, but don’t buy it hoping to get iLife with it…
I don’t think iMovie would really be great for this task anyway (but I personally am not a fan of iMovie for anything, so maybe you should take my opinion with a grain of salt).
I just realized that Quicktime player X (or Quicktime player Pro) can extract (trim) clips for any playable movie. QT X comes with Snow Leopard.