Exporting Video from a DVD Studio Pro File

One of the most important things that you should be able to do during post-production is have synergy between all of the software you are using. The cycle tends to go from the editing software to the compression program to the DVD authoring suite, but in many cases you may need to go in reverse. In case you lost footage that was already burned to a DVD or needed to do a backward transfer you may need to know how to export your compressed files from DVD Studio Pro into a useful video file that you can then import back into your editing software or use for online distribution.

To do this first open the DVD file that you are looking to get the footage from. Go into the graphical view and find the specific video track that the clip is on that you want. Once this is open go to the Timeline display and highlight both the video and the audio. Now you go to File then Export. Select MPEG File from the short list. You can now give it a proper file name and set a location for it to export to. Make sure it is well identified so that it does not get mixed up amongst your other files.

This will take a few minutes depending on the length of the video clip. Over all shorter clips will work better, mainly because they will be faster and you are not able to select a specific section of the clip that you want to export. It will export the file as a full sized MPEG video file, though it will still probably be smaller then it was during the original log and capture process. If you want to bring it back into your editing software you can just import it as you would with any video file. If you are going to upload it onto a distribution website then you will likely have to compress it again. Though it is a full sized video it will have reduced resolution because it was compressed from its original export. Either way it now can be used for a variety of purposes, including placement back onto a DVD.