I'd get a video camera and shoot the material I want myself, not ripping from a cable box. If you want to continue on this road, use Nero, Cyberlink or any other consumer software, including Notepad. Be aware of the legal limitations however.

But I don't think handling video of all types is too much to ask.

If you want a bloated program that is highly unstable, full of bugs and leaves a 150+ GB footprint, no. Luckily Adobe chose not to go that route and kept to what they are supposed to be good in and even then there are bugs, instabilities and things to be improved.

It is utterly ridiculous to expect a 'pro' editor to be able to handle all kinds of consumer and non-suitable material. There is freeware/shareware for that.

When you go to the butcher for a nice steak, do you expect him to repair the soles of your shoes as well, since he uses cows in his trade? And do you expect him to also sell shoe laces?

A jack-of-all-trades is the last thing we are waiting for.

Nice simple workflow Jeff. Hope it gets the OP to editing the game films.

Thanks,

Hunt

[Edit] PS for similar, with a client's wife's cooking show TV programs, I just hooked the DVR up to my A-D unit, and did a straight Capture using it's software to DV-AVI. These edited fine and the difference in the TV feed and the output DVD were very acceptable. No device control between the software and the DVR, but hey, with the remote in one hand and the mouse in the other, very little extra footage was Captured.

So, what I want to know is, if you were me and you had my files and you wanted to import them into Premiere/Encore, etc. What would you do?

I'd probably use other software.  Premiere tends to like pro media from pro cameras.

So it comes down to info about the source .ts file.  Frame rate?  Codec used (most likely H.264)?  The log file (not the .dga file) created by DGAVCIndex should have some useful info about the frame rate and codec.

The frame rate reported in VirtualDub during export is the speed at which VDub is processing the video, not the intended or actual playback rate.  But that's me only guessing at what you saw and where you saw it because you sort of glossed over that part.

-Jeff

In the DGMPEGDec log file, the coded# and playback# represent the number

of frames.

Since it plays fine in VDub before you export, it is the export that is

likely messing things up.  Here's what I do:

   1. Go to the Video menu.  Select Fast Recompress.

   2. Got to the Video menu again.  Select Compression.

   3. In the dialog box that opens, select Lagarith from the codec list.

   4. Click the Configure button.  Do you have a multi-core processor?

      If so, check Use Multithreading.  In the Mode drop-down list,

      select YUY2 and click OK.  Click OK again.

   5. Go to the File menu and choose Save As AVI...

You should be good to go.

This stuff is not easy.  The encoding schemes, file structures, varying

decoder quality, application design and the occasional lame attempt at

copy protection all conspire against the end user.  Most users aren't

pirating copyrighted material; they just want to buy or record one time

only, and then watch it when they want, on the device(s) that they

want.  Unfortunately, taking HD material and converting to SD or smaller

involves lots of computing power, and for the most part, lots of

different computer programs.  And there's lots of places in the workflow

to make errors that will be genuinely fatal to the end result.

-Jeff

I would think that this FPS issue could be handled along the way in Jeff's suggested workflow. If not, and G-Spot will tell you what you are dealing with, I use a conversion program, DigitalMedia Converter, to go NTSC to PAL and PAL to NTSC a lot. On the files that I am given (all sorts of CODEC's), it has worked fine with Frame Rate conversions. It would be one more step, but might be worth it. Still, there has got to be a way to address this issue in the current workflow - IMHO.

Good luck,

Hunt

GSpot indicates that VirtualDub created a proper Lagarith 720p60 .avi file.  The error is in your playback chain.  Whatever program or programs you are using to view the exported file, they are smurfing the playback.

Anything that could mess up DirectShow, like Codec packs for example, is the likely culprit.

For essentially bullet-proof playback, I use the KMPlayer here.  Many folks use Media Player Classic.  Windows Media Player is very susceptible to bad codecs and corrupted filters.

-Jeff

AVI needs to be transcoded, AC3 will pass through.

H.264 takes longer to transcode, but produces better quality than MPEG2

at similar bit rates.  That's even more important when sports videos are

involved.  As always, test a short segment and compare for yourself. 

And if burning to BD, make sure to use an RE disc to avoid wasting a

blank disc.

-Jeff