DVD Editing Tool?

I can't seem to find any tools that do what I want, so I thought I'd ask around a bit. I'm looking for something that will let me work with two drives simultaneously, copying bits from one directly onto the other. In other words, like if I had a DVD Player and DVD Recorder connected with a Scart lead. I press play on one, record on the other and off we go, much like copying audio cassettes on a twin-tape unit. I want to be able to compile DVD's from programs recorded on other DVD's so I can throw out the waste and keep only what I still want.

I don't want to waste time and image quality messing around with ripping it, because these are all discs I've recorded myself and do not have any protection. Therefore there is "nothing to rip". Just simple disc to disc really. I can already do it by connecting a DVD player to my DVD recorder, but that's inconvenient. It would be much nicer to be able to do it on my PC, since that has more than enough drives.

Can't you do that with Nero?

Well I only recently bought Nero 7, so it's possible there's something in here I don't know about, but I haven't found it. Nero Recode allows you to compile DVD's, but it's not the freeform play and record method I described, it's more the traditional video editing tools, setting up a project and then going away for an hour while it cuts it all together. I'd prefer something where I can just scan through the DVD and record in realtime.

I'd also like to be able to compile several different clips into one title by pausing between records. Whereas Nero Recode wants to call each little clip a new title.

But perhaps there's something in Nero Recode I'm missing or perhaps there are other Nero programs that I haven't found yet.

EDIT: Actually there is a merge titles option in Nero Recode, so perhaps it's only the freeform nature I'm missing.

Not sure if it does exactly what you want, but TMPGenc DVD Author is pretty easy to work with...

It allows you to create DVD Menu's, and chapters, etc.
You can import MPG files, or VOB's from other (unprotected) DVD's, and either group them under a different title, or as multiple chapters under one title.

That's just it, I don't want to import anything. I want to press play on one and press record on the other, just as you would with a dvd player and dvd recorder connected.

Kinda like the good ol' days where you had two tape-recorders setup to make duplicates of your home-made VHS tapes.....play on one, then have the other that's connected to it record the video/audio signal it's sending along the way to the TV......

As for any software that allows that by means of computer, sorry, haven't come across anything like that, and such a system would require compressing the video/audio on the fly though, would be a bit rough on the "average joe's" computer when talking of an average DVD quality video no?

Yes, exactly like that.



I dunno, perhaps. I can do it with a £30 DVD player and a £65 DVD recorder, so you would think my £800 PC could cope with it, but perhaps not. I just figured some clever programmer would have come up with a way of doing it like the standalone players do it, intercepting the image as it's being played rather than decoding, reencoding and burning data from and to the disks. But maybe it's not even possible.

That's just it, I don't want to import anything. I want to press play on one and press record on the other, just as you would with a dvd player and dvd recorder connected.



The catch is that the machine needs to have horsepower to both decode the one disc, and encode the other one at the same time.

Unlike your stand-alone DVD recorder, a PC does not have the customer chips built-in that are optimized to encode DVD-quality video in real time, so it is comparitively much work.

I guess technically it may well be possible (although it would probably still be advisable to encode to HD first before burning to DVD to prevent buffer underrun issues)... But your requirements are very, very specific here... I doubt there is much of a market for such a solution.

I take your point that PC's don't have decoding chips, but a 1Hgz PC can decode or encode a DVD pretty reasonably, and here I am with a dual core 3Ghz, so it sounds pretty feasible. Also, because it would be playing & recoding in real time, it would only be burning at a slow speed, hence the recording side of things wouldn't be pushing much at all.

Perhaps you're right about my requirements being specific and the market being small, but I find it hard to believe that I'm the only person who finds that building a project, cutting out clips building menus and all that junk is incredibly clunky compared to the quick and simple editing you can do on a cheap DVD recorder.