Hi,

My first post here and I'm real noob on this topic, but I want to get started with home editing of both video and audio and make it part of my overall hobby of home electronics, HTPC, home theater, etc. The only A/V editing I have done previously was 6 years ago and made some AVI's to demo a software product. I used Camtasia for screen captures, Goldwave to record the audio (voice) and Adobe Premier to put it together. But I only learned enough to get the job done and have forgotten most of that.

Anyway -- here's my first questions. I bought my wife the "Concert for George" DVD for Xmas and would like to make a CD from the sound track so we can play it in the car, etc. I assume such a thing can be done, but can it be done relatively easily with simple PC-based software -- and if so, what would you recommend as a "starter set" for someone like me?

Thanks in advance for any and all advice.

Remember that making a CD of a commercial dvd soundtrack is probably a Federal Offense and that is no joke. Look at how the RIAA is treating people when they copy songs plus you will get a higher quality CD if you just buy the CD.

Legal issues aside there are probably several ways to do what you asked.

How High Fidelity do you need to have for toolin around in your car?

First thought is play the dvd on your dvd player and put sound output into your pc to record the soundtrack on your PC's hard drive. You many have a stereo input on your audio card (depends on the card) or stereo audio input on your video card (depends on the card) or you can buy an inexpensive adapter that will take dvd audio output and input to your PC.

You can capture song-at-a-time or capture as one long track and then chop it up if you care to.

I would capture the sound as wav and then open that track in timeline of one of many editing programs and then slice and dice into tracks as you care to and then render the tracks as preferred format for CD burning - .wav or mp3 or whatever.

that's a lot of work so I'd just buy the CD if I liked the DVD so much.
GoodLuck

Thanks for the reply. As to legality, I'm of the opinion that I have already paid to own the content, so under a "fair use" standard I should be able to repoduce it in another medium. That's probably not "strictly" true but since I don't intend to sell or give away copies, but just use it myself, I'm not too bothered by it.

I have thought of simply recording the orginal source, but was hoping there might be a more direct digital editing way to do it. Since I can make a copy of the DVD files via DVD Decrypter, I thought there would be a straightforward way to run the source files into an editor and pull out the audio tracks as MP3 files.

As to recording the audio source -- is it possible to simply connect the headphone/line out jack on PC's sound card to the mic/line input jack on the same card and have the player and capture applications run simultaneously on the same machine?

You're probably right about the amount of work involved vs. just buying the CD, but I guess I was seeing this as a nice little project to get my feet wet with digital editing, which would also satisfy a need.

What software would you recommend for someone who wants to get into digital editing of all kinds at the serious hobbyist/pro-sumer level? Is the avs4you.com stuff good for that level?

Thanks again for your input. I appreciate it.

Without attempting to judge the moral implications of the act at all it sounds like what you need is "DVD Audio Ripper". Which will capture the audio from a DVD to your hard drive. I've played with it to capture a few gunshots and sound effects.

So check out DVD Audio Ripper - DVD movie soundtrack ripper, Rip DVD audio to MP3

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I'm not young enough to know everything!

Another way, and the way i would do it since i use the program alot, is to use Soundforge if you have or can get it.

Simply play the DVD on your PC and set Soundforge to record from your sound card in the device drop down menu. You can also choose what format to record to such as WAV, MP3 etc.

Obviously this was will take as long as the DVD is but who cares.

Hope this helps

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http://www.youtube.com/chameleonmedia

Alan Mills and moonmin troll --

Thanks for the input -- both options sound good. I will look into them further. Going out of town for the next week or so and need to put this project on hold in the interim. Will re-start next week.

Thanks again.

Legal/Schemgle - I just mention that to remind all that the RIAA and MPAA take a dim view of even owner fair use copying. I have bought so much music in so many formats and also movies I am not concerned about whatever copying I do for my personal use.

I took soundtrack from a great old movie called Streets of Fire (a rock & roll fantasy) by just putting dvd player next to my pc and put stereo output into stereo input of my sound card. Captured as wav which is best quality for a regular CD but once the music is on your hard drive you can transcode it to whatever file size or format you care to. It's not that much trouble.

I've turned many of our old vinyl records to CD.
GoodLuck