Help editing an exported iDVD file

[naturgrrl]

Hi all,
Happy holidays!
I have a digital video situation that i have been trying to fix for a month with no good results, so I thought I'd try here

Main Question is:
Can I somehow turn a disc image (.img) file or the content of a burned dvd (burned from iDVD, becomes a .dvdproj file) into a format that I can edit in iMovie or Adobe Premier?


Here's the story.
I am a professional photographer, and I dabble in creating movies using super 8 film. I created a super 8 film of a wedding. I edit the footage in iMovie '09, and I add a title slide and closing slide using files I create in photoshop and then import to iPhoto for use in iMovie.

OK, so i spent HOURS editing, timing the footage to the music, rearranging the frames..etc., and then added the title/closing slides, and then was done and happy with the iMovie film, so i exported it to iDVD. I then burned it, hooray! I saved it as a disc image so i could make more copies, hooray!

Problem is, I re-edited the original movie I was happy with to make a shorter, more web-friendly length film. Since I had exported it and burned many copies and the disc image, i thought I was safe. Biut THEN i found out that i spelled the bride's name wrong on the title slide, and so I now need to just edit that one little piece of the film, and don't have the time to re-edit the short film to remake the long film by adding back in the original footage that I took out. It would be like 20 more hours to recreate the long version.. They didn't pay me enough to cover that, so I'm trying to get this done without having to do that.

So, can I somehow turn the disc image (.img) file or the content of the burned dvd into an editable format that I can use in iMovie or Adobe Premier?

Any thoughts would be helpful.. I'm stumped

 

[xStep]

MPEG Streamclip would probably be the best answer but you need Apples $20 MPEG 2 decoder.

For a freebie, I'd look at using Handbrake.

In either case you want to get the best quality you can off of the disc image.

By the way, you didn't have to edit down your original iMovie project. You could have duplicated and edited down the duplicate. This would have allowed you to have both versions.

If you have a backup of the original, then you maybe able to recover to that. I haven't tried it. You do have backups, right!

 

[DoFoT9]

what you are basically after is turning the DVD formatted (mpeg2) file into a singular .dv file - this can be edited by the programs you mentioned.

it is easy enough to convert the DVD into this, but you must do it in a lossless manner.

if you are competent, VLC can do it - so can a program like VisualHub (costs) or VideoMonkey (free).

if you are less concerned about quality loss, convert it to a high-bitrate m4v/mp4 file using Handbrake (allowing as little quality loss as possible) - then use QuickTime/simialr to convert that into a .dv file.

 

[naturgrrl]

Thank you for the suggestions!

I only have a backup of the original on disc and as the disc image. Unfortunately I didn't really understand that iDVD didn't really save the whole movie file, just their themed "start" page.

Yesterday i bought this iSkysoft DVD ripper thingy, and it seemed to work but the quality is really low in the editable version. There are horizontal lines that are really noticeable when the camera pans..

I will try all that you both mentioned and let you know how it goes
Happy new year!!!

 

[xStep]

iDVD keeps certain things but it has little connection to iMovie. You changed your iMovie project without backing up or duplicating it for further work. This is a work flow issue, not an iDVD issue.

Those horizontal lines may have to do with the fact that you are importing interlaced material. I don't know the product you talk about so comment on possible issues with it. To complicate matters iMovie is known to have an issue with some imported interlaced material.

Finding the file that iMovie made for iDVD is the best quality you can get back, so...

Do you still have you iDVD project? If so, go into the 'Project Info' via the Project menu and look to see what input file it is using. Look under the 'Media' section. You likely will have to expand the window via the lower left corner grab point. I would locate that file, duplicate it, and drag the duplicate to a proper working folder such as your Movies or Documents folder. Import that into iMovie for editing.

If you don't still have the iDVD project, then first, you have to improve you work habits. Anyway, if you exported from iMovie by using Share-->iDVD from the Share menu, then you may still have the file in the iMovie project. Note, t has been a while since I've tried this but I believe that is where the export will be located. To find that file you would right click on the appropriate iMovie project in the 'iMovies Projects' folder, and choose 'Show Package Contents' from the popup menu. From there navigate into the 'Movies' folder. Playback the file(s) to find the appropriate one. When found, duplicate it and drag the duplicate to a proper working folder such as your Movies or Documents folder. Import that into iMovie for editing.

The above assumes iMovie 7 or newer.