I need some help and in words of one syllable would be best, I think. My neighbour has had a dvd made of herself signing a tribute song to her dead grandchild. She is a professional singer and the song tells the circumstances of the child's death. I said I would put it up on youtube for her but am having a hard time doing so. I only have a Spanish version of Windows Movie Maker and when I try to import the video from the dvd drive I get two folders Audio_TS and Video_TS but there are no files in there that WMM wants to copy. Any advice for a dunderheid?
e10, Point #1: You are not a dunderhead...you WOULD be a dunderhead if you had a question and DIDN'T ask it! Point #2: You are not an idiot. You are quite smart for asking (idiots do NOT ask) Point #3: I'm afraid I have never used Windows MovieMaker...but I have used various other video editors and DVD creation software...and there are some similarities here. First, the files you are mentioning are (not surprisingly) the files expected on a DVD for playing on a standard set-top DVD player. I do not know if Windows Movie Maker can read that format directly. I don't think a lot of video editors can (maybe none in the consumer range), but those ARE the files that hold what you are after. You will want to do some searching to see if MovieMaker has a mode where it can import those files (but I am doubting it). If not, then to the limit of my knowledge (which is not complete), I can only see two options for you: 1) "Play" the DVD and capture it to some other device where you know how to get the video into a format that your editor can handle. I am thinking that if you have a camcorder (digital or digital8 would be best) and can "play" the DVD on your set top player while connecting the output jacks into your camcorder, you could THEN transfer the video to your pc and edit it as normal (again assuming you have a camcorder and can get video from it to your PC). Please note that the bad thing about this is that you will lose some level of quality of the video due to "generation loss." However, if the original video is good quality then it may not even be noticeable. 2) Look for a piece of software that can read those DVD files and convert them to an AVI or MPEG format so you can edit it. There just might be such a program out there...I have never looked for one. One place to look is at the ULEAD web site. They have a DVD creation program called something like "DVD Workshop" and "DVD Factory" (or at least they used to). One is a higher-end product, the other is much cheaper. Both products had the ability to extract video from DVD's (meaning the files you are talking about) and pull them into the DVD creation software. I am thinking that it MIGHT actually translate the video at that point into something you can then export and put into your editor. When I used this feature many years ago there were a lot of problems with it. However, it has probably improved and hopefully now works correctly (I could not get the audio off of the DVD in some instances...in other cases it worked perfectly). Their web site is www.ulead.com. I believe they offer a 30 day trial which would be perfect for determining whether or not it will work for you. Hope some of this turns out to be useful to you! Good luck!
Many thanks Mirage. I can watch the dvd on the computer using Real Player or VLC. I think when I dwlded VLC it came with a programme that might do what you are suggsting in option 2. I'll give it a try because I hate to say I will do something for somebody and then not get it done.
Mirage and anyone else who might be interested in getting a dvd clip up on youtube. I eventually managed it using the free trial version of anyDVD to rip the dvd and a free program called Handbrake to convert it to an mp4v for youtube. You can see Lina's song Pequeño Pilar here but don't watch it if you cry easily. It's very sad.
Hey e10, that is great news! Thanks for letting us know what tools you used...I am going to go check them out.