Importing a DVD into Final Cut Pro

(You probably need the MPEG-2 Playback Component for Quicktime, which is available for around $20 here.)

If you import VOB files directly into FCP, they seem to have no sound.

MPEG Streamclip will let you save them as .m2v video files and .aiff audio files without re-encoding them.

(these tests were done on Mac OS X 10.6.4 with FCP 7.0.3 and MPEG Streamclip 1.9.3b2.)

• Open the .vob file in MPEG Streamclip
• If you want, set in and out points (by pressing I and O ) to export only that part
• In the File menu, select Demux -> Demux to M2V and AIFF...
• Import the files into FCP, where you can merge back the video and audio.

If you put such a DVD video file on an HD sequence, it is automatically scaled to your sequence settings. You can change this scaling in the clip's Motion tab.

When I did all this, weird things happened, which don't really matter but which I don't understand. If you do, leave a comment. "Demux" (de-multiplex) means separating the interleaved video, audio and other tracks to write them as separate files. So in the example above, the video goes to the .m2v file, and the audio to the .aiff file. And this is how MediaInfo sees the files: only video in one, and only audio in the other. However, when I imported them into FCP, the .m2v file appeared to somehow magically have audio in it... sometimes. And sometimes not.

So you may be able to throw away the .aiff file and skip the merge step, depending on the positions of the stars or on what the LHC is smashing at the other end of the lake...