Best DVD Authoring quality

[Aaron Bernakevitch]

Maybe I have missed the boat here, or perhaps the discussion is not keyworded correctly. But I am looking for the best quality in terms of DVD authoring from FCP.

I have just edited a commercial (all 4k) in Red Quicktime Files (White paper Method 2) and am trying to get the best dvd quality from it. I think I should use compressor (best 90 minutes) and send to dvd studio pro. Is there a simpler or better method?

Also what are the options for a quicker method using idvd?

And lastly if I want to burn a data DVD with the best quicktime quality for this to be played back in quicktime on a pc or mac.

These seem like normal questions but could not find any similar discussions.

 

[BradWright]

You'll want to encode it as a SD anamorphic 16:9 file. I would recommend converting the footage to a stand alone SD movie. Then import the QT movie into compressor. Don't try to export straight from FCP into compressor, as this usually leads to all kinds of gamma shifts.

Test a few different possible workflows with a small amount of footage before converting the entire video. Since, I wrote DVDxDV, I would of course recommend ripping the footage back into FCP with DVDxDV and checking for level or gamma shifts. You're going from 4k RGB to SD 601 Ycbcr, there's a whole lot of ways for this to go very wrong. What makes this process really easy is that you can use DVD Studio Pro to create a disk image without burning a DVD. It just saves the VIDEO_TS folder to you hard drive. Then you can rip it back to FCP and check the footage to see if any problems developed in the conversion and encoding. This allows you to try many different things without burning through a bunch of DVD disks.

 

[Aaron Bernakevitch]

Thanks Brad, I will give it a go.

Dose anyone else know any links to other disucssions on this topic, it seems like a very basic concept.


"Cheers"

 

[Camilo Ganado]

i agree with anabatic im searching for this discussion everywhere but couldn't find it, until now.
How it goes to u?, im been trying to burn a nice quality dvd from DVD Studio, but all i get is nasty copies, i also convert my @1080p at 24fps to 720x480 at 24fpt in Shake, and all the blacks go crazy.
Any ideas?

 

[Vince K]

..... you can use DVD Studio Pro to create a disk image without burning a DVD. It just saves the VIDEO_TS folder to you hard drive. Then you can rip it back to FCP and check the footage to see if any problems developed in the conversion and encoding. This allows you to try many different things without burning through a bunch of DVD disks.

Thank you for this!!!!!

 

[Roy Pearson]

I've been getting great quality using cinema craft mp:
http://www.omni-cinemacraft.com/products_cinemacraft_encodermp.shtml

Also, when converting from HD it's very important to turn on frame controls in compressor and change the resize filter to "best."

 

[J.D.]

I'm tired of ads for cinema craft in these DV threads.. I don't want to buy another product I want to use FCP and its tools.

 

[Edgar Pitts]

I'm tired of ads for cinema craft in these DV threads.. I don't want to buy another product I want to use FCP and its tools.

Cinema Craft is the best out there. If you want to use substandard tools, be my guest...

 

[J.D.]

Don't be insulting. Its not that I want to use substandard tools. I wouldn't have shot on Red would I?
I just want to know how to burn a DVD with the Final Cut Pro tools I have..... I've already spent enough $......

Your shroud trailer looks awesome by the way.

 

[Alex.Mitchell]

Cinema Craft is the best out there. If you want to use substandard tools, be my guest...

Compressor isn't that bad. Maybe if he were encoding at really low bitrates, but overall I think it holds up well enough.

 

[jimhare]

I have an SD-2000 ($15,000 hardware encoder) and I sometimes use Compressor for professional jobs.

You can indeed get great results, you just need to tweak a bit.

For Red, add a bit of contrast in the MPEG2 compressor module, and make sure you do a 2-pass VBR encode around 6.5Mb/s. Make sure it's anamorphic when you author.