In the past you could frame serve files from e.g. Flask/Xmpeg or DVDx to an encoder. But if you want to frame serve to e.g. a video editing program you run into problems. One of the biggest problems that you would encounter was, that neither of those DVD rippers did support random access in an MPEG stream. To solve this problem, I created a new program that is called Link2. In combination with other programs you are able to read with random access in your DVD and MPEG streams. Above all, you can add some extra processing like scaling, and de-interlaced to this process.

Before you start with this guide you need to download the following files:

-Link2
-Avisynth beta 6
-example.avs Download
-MPEG2CODEC.dll Download
-DVD2AVI (special version) Download

To simplify this guide I also provide a samplestream (DVDimport.VOB) to registered users. This file can be downloaded in the members only download section to limit traffic on my site. If you registered one of my programs, you can retrieve your password and login in the member section. One of the main advantages of having this same sample stream is, that it allows you to follow this guide exactly. Of course you can use other streams, but you will not get exactly the same output.

WARNING: This guide assumes that you are using unencrypted and NON-multi angle content, that you normally would find on self recorded DVDs. However if you want to import encrypted and/or multi angle DVDs, you need to decrypt them and remove the multi angle with one of the many programs for this. Please note that you are NOT allowed to do this in many countries.

The guide consists of 4 parts.
-Create a DVD2AVI file
-Create an Avisynth file
-Wrap this avisynth file into an AVI file with the Link2 program
-Open this AVI file in an editing program

Part 1: Create the DVD2AVI file

First launch DVD2AVI and select file->Open.

After opening the file, you can see the contents of the file. 

Normally you do not need to have access to all the video inside the DVD. So please select a start and end point that you want to export to your editing program. Because the audio is stored in RAW mode, you need about 20 MB of free HD space  per minute of exported DVD. Selecting the start point  by dragging the slider to the desired start point and press the "start mark" button. 

The end point is selected in the same way, but then by pressing on the "end mark" button.

After selecting the desired export range, you can save the project file. This save function will generate a .d2v and .WAV file. I recommend that you save this file in the directory "c:\videofiles" with the filename DVDimport. 

After the DVD2AVI program saved the project file, it should have generated 2 files. To continue this guide, please rename the .WAV that is generated by the DVD2AVI program file to DVDimport.WAV.

Part 2: Creating the avisynth file

To simplify this guide, I created an example.avs Avisynth script. It assumes that it is placed in the same directory as the DVDimport.WAV and DVDimport.dv2 files. This avs file is just a normal text file, and can be viewed and edited in notepad. This example.avs file assumes that you created the audio and video file with the following name : "DVDimport.WAV" for audio and "DVDimport.dv2" for video as suggested in the guide. I chose to scale the exported video to PAL VCD resolutions, and convert the output format to RGB. You can add or remove additional processing by editing the example.avs script. 

Part 3: Wrap the Avisynth file into an AVI file.

Before we can wrap the Avisynth file into an AVI file, we need to copy the MPEG2DEC.dll file to the same directory as the stored files. If you did everything correctly, you should have the following file in the "c:\videofiles" directory. 

Now it is time to launch the link2 program. Open the example.avs file by clicking on the browse button and select the example.avs file.  Please make sure the you set the link2 program in RAW audio mode and do NOT force the video format. If you want to reduce the needed HD space, you can disable this feature. Please keep in mind that you can run into problems on some systems. If you do, please enable it again.

After the program is setup correctly, wrap the Avisynth file by clicking on the Wrap button. Now the link2 program writes an example.avi file that can be loaded by any program that can read AVI files. 

Part 4: Load the wrapped Avisynth file into Cleaner 5.

Now you can close all other program that you previously started. The final step of this guide is to load the example.avi in Cleaner 5. Launch Cleaner 5 and select File->Open and load the example.avi created by the Link2 program..

Now you are ready to play and encode the DVD material in Cleaner 5.

The End