Best quality SD dvd options?

[Andrew Wilding]

Hi all -

Im getting ready to put my short Piano Man (http://vimeo.com/5572232) onto dvd to send it out to festivals, but Im having a really difficult time exporting it out of final cut pro into SD. It always looks incredibly jaggy and blocky, with huge, awful amounts of compression. Its not that it looks bad compared to hd - it looks bad compared to other dvds. I've tried a million settings on Compressor, but it either looks very jaggy or very soft. What are some tips for getting a good sd dvd out of 4k material?

Do I need to export it hd and dow rez it in another program? Go to a post house where they have more advanced tools? What do I do? I'd love to have my film look comparable to a professional dvd release. Is this possible?

I this isnt the right subforum for my query, where might I repost it, mods?

Thanks!

 

[Noah Kadner]

First send out to 16:9 ProRes 4444 at SD resolution. Then run that through Compressor using the best settings presets for 16:9. Should be fine. I show a lot of good techniques for getting good DVDs on this training video btw:

http://www.callboxlive.com/products/dvd-studio-pro-special-edition

-Noah

 

[Cail Young]

I often end up needing a little bit of sharpening in the MPEG-2 encode just to add some edge to a soft downres. Horses for courses, of course.