[MacDV] Editing MPEG2 files (clarification)

[Mark M. Florida]

The problem is that MPEG-2 is not an editing format.  You can't directly
edit MPEG-2 with iMovie, Final Cut Pro, or any other "standard" editing app
out there.  I'm sure there are Windoze apps that let you work with MPEG-2
like it was DV, but in my opinion, it's just a hack.

Whatever individual told you to go to MPEG-2 files probably did not ask you
what you wanted to do with them, what system you were using, what software,
etc.  It would have been easier for them to dub to DV tape, and those DV
dubs would be much higher quality than MPEG-2, and you'd actually be able to
use them EASILY in iMovie and iDVD.

iDVD is an authoring program -- the only input files it will accept are
QuickTime files (the DV codec is preferred for quality and ease of
conversion).  It will not accept pre-encoded MPEG-2 files as an input file.

So that's about it, I think.  You just need DV...

Well...  Maybe you could use Toast 6 to hack something together close to
what you want...  It might be worth a try if you've already spent money
getting your stuff encoded into MPEG-2.

Hope that helps?

- Mark

On 9/24/04 10:33 AM, Brian Olesky at brian4 at sbcglobal.net wrote:

> OK, thru offlist and other posts, I've now learned enough to make my
> question a little clearer.
> 
> What I want to be able to do is take a bunch of professionally produced 15
> to 60 second videos, which I have on individual BetaSP tapes, and string
> them together in varying compilations, to make custom reels that I can burn
> to DVD. Meaning I really don't have to do any film editing, just compiling.
> 
> So what I've learned is, I don't need iMovie at all (unless I want to add
> some titles). And that I may have done the right thing by going straight to
> MPEG2s, because that's the format iDVD will need to enable me to make these
> custom DVDs?
> 
> And that if I want to make some title cards to add in here and there, that's
> what I'd use iMovie for?
> 
> And one last question--If all I want to do is lay out 10 or 12 of the MPEG2s
> in a specific order, and then add a few titles at the front and back, with
> maybe a few more in the middle between clips, do I have to upgrade to DVD
> Studio Pro? iDVD can't do this? It seems pretty basic.
> 
> Sorry if I'm boring everyone with a Video 101 question, but I'm new here and
> don't know the flow yet.
> 
> Again, TIA,
> Brian 
> 
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