Trouble making DVD files. . .

[Stephen Pruitt]

Hi all. . .

We've been having terrible trouble getting a DVD file to look like anything other than 120i. Everything looks very blocky, very "line-ish," very, very unresolved.

Let's assume you are in FCP and have a 2K file. What on earth do you do to make a 480 file for a decent DVD look? Specific details would be most appreciated. I can't tell you what we are doing right now, 'cause I'm not the editor, but detailed descriptions of crucial program settings that actually work well would be very much appreciated.

Seeing as I'm leaving for a presentation tomorrow morning, I'd really love any quick feedback.

Thanks!

Stephen

 

[Matthew Rogers]

Turning on the frame controls in compressor and turning everything to best works great for me. There is a thread around here somewhere that described the exact settings.

Matthew

 

[Uli Plank]

Compressor get's awfully slow if you use frame controls. I'd either do the downscaling to SD in RR or give MPEG Streamclip (free) a try, it does very good downscaling from HD. Just feed Compressor your downsized image in 24p coded as ProRes and set it to 24p NTSC, every DVD player can do the pulldown for ordinary TVs.

 

[Rob Castiglione]

Second MPEG Streamclip. It is very good.

Rob

 

[JanneJansson]

Hi all. . .

We've been having terrible trouble getting a DVD file to look like anything other than 120i. Everything looks very blocky, very "line-ish," very, very unresolved.

Let's assume you are in FCP and have a 2K file. What on earth do you do to make a 480 file for a decent DVD look? Specific details would be most appreciated. I can't tell you what we are doing right now, 'cause I'm not the editor, but detailed descriptions of crucial program settings that actually work well would be very much appreciated.

For a semi controlled scale down to DVD, I just make a new sequence with normal SD (DV setting), and drop the HD, 2k, sequence in to. Use DV codec or use ProRes codec. When first clip is dropped in to a new sequence, FCP ask to change to that clips settings, if that happens, click -no.

All should become unrendered. If you have many layers with video and sound, do this to forece all to be rendered to full resolution.

Right click on new sequence - settings and make sure you have "Field dominance - None"

1 - Select a clip in the sequence.
2 - Apple + a (to select all)
3 - Apple + r (to render all)
4 - alt + r (to render audio and video)
5 - apple + alt + r (render audio)

In this way FCP is forced to render all in fullres. Export out as Quicktimovie.., or export using compressor and mpeg-2 2-pass, using maximum bit-rate depending on the length of the film.

Cheers

 

[Sidney L. Plaut]

the above fcp work flow is simply no correct.

you make a dv sequence, it renders in dv.

Fcp does a terrible job of downscaling from 2k,hd to SD even if u select 10bit uncompressed.

Compressor, frame control on. - rescaling - best. and choose 16:9 - which will create a FHA (full height anamorphic) file. which is what most broadcasters use. Slow? maybe. but the way to go for max quality.

If you want step by step. pm me.

best,

Sidney

 

[Carl Dieker]

Always down convert to PRO RES

Always down convert to PRO RES

Down conversion to SD has been heavily debated. I have found that conversion between different resolutions yields great results as long as you stay in PRO RES during the first down sampling. Down convert either directly from REDCINE to SD PRO RES or go to 1080 HD PRO RES and then in Compressor or FCP continue down to SD PRO RES. After that to what codec one wishes.

I wrote about this yesterday:

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=21463

/Calle

 

[JanneJansson]

the above fcp work flow is simply no correct.

you make a dv sequence, it renders in dv.

It's correct. You can modify any preset you want. (Use ProRes codec in a DV-setting) Just right click sequence -> Compressor -> select ProRes instead of DV.