DVDs: need expert help

[Eusebius]

I have a DVD, from which I'd like to edit out about fifteen minutes of material I don't want. The orginal recording, from a TV broadcast, was taped 20 years ago on Betamax, then transferred to VHS, and finally recently to DVD. The video quality is terrible, but the stuff I want to keep is important to me.

Here's what I tried to do.

I dragged the VIDEO_TS folder on the DVD to the hard drive. This folder has several BUP, IFO and VOB files.

Using an application called ffmpegx I converted the VOB files to DV. (I wanted to avoid mp4 because I thought the compression would worsen the already appalling picture quality.)

I opened the new DV files in Quicktime. Two of them had stuff I don't want, one wouldn't open, and two DV files had the material I want to keep.

Here's my problem. There are about five seconds missing between the end of the first DV file and the beginning of the second. These five seconds are there, however, when I open the VIDEO_TS file in the DVD player. What am I doing wrong in the conversion process to DV that would make the five seconds disappear? Where are they?

I'm a novice to video, and I hope someone can help me.

 

[theman5725]

I reccomend ripping the DVD with Handbrake, and then using iMovie to cut out the parts you don't want.

 

[Eusebius]

I tried that. Handbrake rips only to mp4, I think, which is what I did, and the picture quality, already bad to start with, was even worse after subjecting it to Handbrake's compression. I thought this ffmpegx thing would convert to a format (DV) usable in iMovie without noticeable quality loss. And so it did, but then stole five seconds of material!

 

[jemeinc]

I can't seem to get sound when I import the MP4's from handbrake into iMovie.. Am I doing it wrong? I open iMovie HD, click import, and then let it import..