Converting MPG video to dv files
I don’t know much about the dv format, except that it is a standard format that many camcorders use. For this reason, many video editors (such as kino for linux) prefer to see files coming in dv format. The problem I ran into is that the new handycam dvd puts images in .VOB files (which are really MPG). So, I found this handy script… that runs on Mac or Linux and is called mpeg2dv. It does the trick and is public domain. The only requirement I can see is ffmpeg.
The process of conversion was relatively quick and once done the dv file was able to load in kino, where I could then edit. (BTW kino is really very nice… and may deserve it’s own article.) I’ve been looking at various linux video editors, but so far, kino has really worked the best for what I’m trying to do.
If you’re puzzled at how to convert from the VOB to mpg…. you can just rename them.