> I was surprised to hear people say that they actually edit video on a 
> normal home PC. I had always assumed that was impossible.
> 
> It's beginning to look like it _is_ impossible...

It sure isn't.

> (long journey to arrive at a .VOB file on harddisk)
> 
> Now... how in the name of God do you *edit* the thing?! >_<
> 
> My first thought was to try Windows MovieMaker. [Last time I tried it I 
> found it to be quite useless, but everybody else claims it's fantastic.] 
> So I opened it up and tried to give it the video file. Nuh-uh. Won't 
> have it. Not interested. So I renamed the file form *.VOB to *.MPG.

Don't do that. The video codec might be the same, but the internal file 
structure is completely different.

> (...)
> 
> To summarise: I now have a 1.2 GB video file which I can play, but I 
> cannot edit in any possible way. What the hell am I supposed to do now? >_<
> 
> I just want to cut the video into seperate pieces and remove a few 
> parts. It's not exactly rocket science...

OK, here are two ways to do it (there are probably thousands more):

The mentioned software is all free or even open source, google will help 
you.

1) [If you like virtualdub and don't mind reencoding you video]

a) run your .vob through DGIndex. You will arrive at an .d2v file and an 
audio file for each audio track of your .vob

b) write an avisynth script (.avs) to frameserve that .d2v (or use a 
tool like virtualdub to generate one)

c) open .avs in virtualdub, add audio tracks, edit, encode



2) [If you don't like to reencode your video]

a) run your .vob through ProjectX (ProjectX is a software originally 
designed to split audio and video from a bunch of mpeg2-container 
formats used in DVRs and keeping everthing in sync even in presence of 
disturbances. Works well for .vob files too. It might be a bit hard to 
find a compiled version [license issues], but it is distributed with a 
working build.bat file. [Java SDK needed]). You will arrive at a .mpg 
(or .m2v depending on settings) and audio files for all your audio tracks.

b) cut and remux with Mpeg2Schnitt (oops, german only, this is what I 
use) or Cuttermaran. (Both are capable of cutting MPEG2 without reencoding)

c) in case the cutting software does not do the muxing of vidoe and 
audio track, use a program of your choosing to do so for the desired 
container format (mplex, bbmpeg, DVDAuthor, mkvmerge, ...)

Manuel

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