Process for Importing DVDs into Premiere?

[MattWard99]

Hi Everyone,

I'm a brand-new user of Premiere Pro -- and the Adobe forums for that matter -- so please excuse any inevitable newbie-ness on my part.

I bring this up because I know that the question I'm about to ask has been brought up before on the forum, BUT, from what I can tell, most of the discussions around this topic are 4 years old (or older), so in the interest of acquiring the most current information I can, I'd like to bring it up again. So here goes...

I am interested in importing DVDs into Premiere Pro for the purpose of editing them into music videos and would like to know the best way to go about doing this.

Start to finish, what's the best process? Any information/links would be greatly appreciated. I'm working on a Mac, OS High Sierra.

Thanks in advance,

Matt

[John T Smith · Accepted solution]

You import only the VOB files

Directly editing a VOB... or Ripping a VOB to edit using a note from Jim Simon

-http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1322647

[MattWard99]

Hi John,

Thanks for responding to my post!

I used the Jim Simon forum link to access video help.com, and tried to download XviD4PSP (latest version) to my Mac, but was unsuccessful. It seemed to download fine, but when I tried to open it, the following message popped up:

"The following disk images could not be opened: XviD4PSP-7.0.432-Mac64.dmg. Reason: image not recognized."

Not sure what this means exactly, or what I need to do?

Should I forego XviD4PSP and download DVDFab instead? Can you recommend the latter?

Thanks very much for your help!

Matt

[John T Smith]

I am Windows only, but that Mac message MAY be associated with what it says below

CS6 and earlier programs have not been tested and will not be updated for Mac El Capitan/Sierra

-which means that you try to use CS6 and earlier at YOUR risk of having problems due to Apple updates

-Apple did not maintain backward compatibility with old programs in El Capitan or Sierra

--Adobe has a workaround to Apple's problem of not maintaining backward compatibility

--READ HERE https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2301916 for an Adobe solution to installing old programs, including a link to installing the old Java runtime that is required

[Ann Bens]

Download Premiere CS6 (if it will work on High Sierra) to convert to dv avi.

StreamClip is also a free converter.

[benjaminj14616427]

I have almost gotten there, I have tried doing this in Premiere CC and cs6 and it just says that it is an unsupported compression type. Any ideas? Thanks very much for your reply.

[MattWard99]

Hi Benjamin,

Not sure if this will be of any help to you, but I just wanted to say that after getting lost in the forest for a week or two, in the end what worked for me was simply using the trial version of MacDVDRipperPro to rip the .VOB files from a regular DVD, then importing those VOB files into Premiere Pro.

Literally, that's all it took and I was off to the races, able to edit clips.

Now, once I finished editing my first video, I realized that the quality (i.e., the resolution) kind of sucked due to it being regular DVD and not BluRay... so my next challenge is to see if I can repeat the same process with BluRay video instead of regular. For that I'm going to try using MakeMKV instead of MacDVDRipperPro 'cause I don't think that the latter rips BluRay.

Anyway, good luck and hope this helps!

Matt

[Ann Bens]

No point in using MakeMKV. MKV is not supported by Adobe.

[MattWard99]

OK, thanks!

Any suggestions for an alternative way to import BluRay files into Premiere?

Thanks again,

Matt

[Ann Bens]

Go into the STREAM and copy the m2ts files.

[MattWard99]

Hi Ann,

I appreciate your response, but, you're speaking in short-hand to a total newbie and I'm not quite following you. Could you please elaborate a little more re: the necessary steps I need to follow in order to import BluRay files into Premiere?

Thanks!!!

Matt

[Stan Jones]

Look at the BD in finder/windows explorer. You'll see a path like this:

[BD Drive]\[BD Disk Name]\BDMV\STREAM

Inside the STREAM folder will be one or more files with .m2ts extension. That is the video/audio.

Assuming no copy protection, copy those files to your hard drive, import to PR from there.

[MattWard99]

Hi Stan,

Thanks for getting back to me. Unfortunately, unless I'm missing something(?), the steps that you suggested won't work b/c I'm working with commercial (i.e., copy protected) BluRay disks.

I wasn't able to open the BDMV folder, much less the STREAM folder, to get at the .m2ts files.

If I'm missing something, or there's some kind of work around to this, please let me know!

Thanks again,

Matt

[Ann Bens]

If you are using commercial disks, alas you are out of luck. There is a reason they are copy protected.

[MattWard99]

Sigh... back to standard DVDs I go.

Thanks!

Matt