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Importing Content from DVDs

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Importing Content from DVDs

One essential feature that appeared in Studio 9.4 and continues in version 10 is the ability to import video from DVD-Video discs. This can be a quick and easy way to reclaim short bits of footage from previous productions where you no longer have the source assets on your hard disk. In theory, you do lose a bit of quality when working from video retrieved from DVDs, since it's already been encoded once, but it's usually difficult to tell.

You can't import video from DVDs with the kind of specificity or sequential access you get when you capture from your camcorder. Video is stored on DVDs in groups of clips called Titles, and that's exactly how it appears to Studio as it retrieves content from a DVD. When you instruct Studio to import video from a DVD, you have to select it by title, because Studio can't drill into the title and find the specific five-minute scene you want. Once you've imported the content as a video file, however, you'll be able to move through and edit it just like any other video file you work with in Studio.

Note that Studio can't retrieve video from copy-protected DVDs like those distributed by Hollywood studios , so if you're looking to spice up your videos with the deli scene from When Harry Met Sally ("I'll have what she's having"), or some other favorite scene ("Rosebud…"), you're out of luck.

To import DVD titles

1.	Choose File > Import DVD Titles ( Figure 6.10 ). Figure 6.10. To import a DVD title, select Import DVD Titles from the File menu. The Import DVD Titles window opens ( Figure 6.11 ). Figure 6.11. The Import DVD Titles window opens.
2.	In the Choose a Disc or Image window, click the DVD drive containing the DVD-Video to import (or the directory containing the disc image).
3.	In the top center of the Import DVD Titles dialog box, click the folder to choose a destination folder for the imported content. Studio opens a Browse for Folder window ( Figure 6.12 ). Figure 6.12. Select the target folder for your imported DVD title.
4.	Select the destination folder and then click OK.
5.	Type a name for the disc in the designated line. Studio stores the imported content as an MPEG file using the following convention: name_title_title number.mpg. For example, Studio assigned the following name to the file imported from the settings shown in Figure 6.11: "Stoneman_Title_2.mpg."
6.	Check the title or titles to import. If you click and highlight a title, you can play the content from that title in the Preview window to confirm that it contains the target video.
7.	After choosing the titles, click Import. Studio displays an Importing DVD Titles dialog box ( Figure 6.13 ) and imports the content. Once complete, Studio closes the Import DVD Titles dialog box. Figure 6.13. Studio imports the DVD title. After Studio imports and stores the file, you can load the video file into the program as described in the previous section, "Loading Video Files."

Tip

Studio worked very quickly during our tests, importing 51 minutes of video in under 10 minutes on a dual-processor computer. Quality was excellent since Studio merely imports the video, and doesn't convert it in any way.

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Playing Videos

It's tough to select the right scenes for your project without playing the video. For this reason, the Album works closely with the Player to let you view and move through your video scenes.

To play your videos

Do one of the following:

Double-click the scene you want to play.
The video immediately starts to play in the Player.
Click the scene you want to play.

The border around the video turns from white to blue. If you're in Comment View mode (see "Working with the Album's Views and Tools," later in this chapter), the scene comments immediately to the right of the video are also highlighted. In addition, the initial frame of the scene appears in the Player ( Figure 6.14 ).

Figure 6.14. To play any video file in the Album, double-click it, or click it once and click Play in the Player.

Under the Player, click Play to start video playback and use the other controls to navigate through the video ( Figure 6.15 ).

Figure 6.15. To move manually through the scenes, use the familiar VCR playback controls or the Player scrubber.

Playback shifts automatically from scene to scene when multiple scenes are present.

The progress bar, a white line underneath the thumbnail in each scene in the Album that fills as the Player progresses through the scene, represents the position of playback within each scene. The Player scrubber represents the position of playback within the entire video.

Tip

Keyboard shortcuts are really helpful for playing back video in the Player from both the Album and the Movie window. Here are the relevant commands:

	Spacebar	Play and stop
	J	Fast-reverse (press multiple times for faster speed)
	K	Stop
	L	Play
	L	Fast-forward (press multiple times for faster speed)

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