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best dvd quality for MiniDV
FCP Group,
I know you’ve been over this many times, but I’m still confussed. After finishing my cut in FCP I’m never sure which route is going to get me the highest quality DVD. My shows are short (this one is 6 min.) and mostly DV25. (this one is MiniDV 16:9–with lots of effects, and filters).
The first couple of years I used: Export/QT Conversion/DV Stream. And imported it into iDVD from iDVD. Then I tried: Export/QT Movie/Current Settings/checked ‘Self-Contained’. Couldn’t tell the difference. The I tried: Export/QT Movie/unchecked ‘Self-containted’ and drug the movie into Compressor. The choices in Compressor throw me, from MPEG-2 120 min Fast Encode to MPEG-2 90 min High Quality. I used MPEG-2 60 min High Quality thinking that the 6.8 mbps would be the highest quality. But again can’t see any real difference. But why compress my movie at all? I don’t need to save space.
What is the best (Highest Quailty) way to get a DV25 FCP to DVD? Or are most of these about the same?
Thanks, and I’ll never ask again.
Richard
G4, 10.2.8, Dual 1 gig, 1 gig RAM, FCP 4.1, iDVD 4.0.1, 240 gigs ATA internal storage
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9 Replies
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Export > Quicktime MOVIE (NOT self-contained) as you did.
NO NEED to use Compressor.
Just drop your exported QT movie into iDVD and burn it.
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For the very best DVD quality, follow this workflow:
1. Upgrade to DVD Studio Pro, and ditch iDVD
2. Work in an uncompressed sequence, or a sequence using the Quicktime Animation (lossless) codec . While your initial DV footage won’t gain any quality by doing this, any further text, graphics, transitions, filters and effects you add will benefit from the lack of further DV compression.
3. Compress your finished project to MPEG2 using either Compressor (2-pass VBR compression) or a better software encoder like BitVice.
The upside to this method is superior quality DVDs. The downside is the cost of buying DVD Studio Pro, and the need for at least 2 hard drives striped together (RAID 0) in order to get realtime playback for editing in FCP.
-zolo
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Richard,
YES, this is the best way that Zolotroph explained. I owe you one from that audio thread, thanks so much ’cause it’s all working great.
You can do all your projects for DVD in the DV setting, and when done convert the sequence to an uncompressed codec. Render, make a movie to put in Compressor and make your DVD, your graphics will look fantastic.
Zolotroph, glad to hear from someone else who’s taking advantage of this really cool workflow.
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Thank you all for your help and input. Since I
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“Zolotroph, glad to hear from someone else who’s taking advantage of this really cool workflow.”
Yeah, it’s worked out pretty well for me. I suppose the ultimate would be to capture the DV footage using a DVCAM deck with SDI out, capture to FCP with an SDI card and do all of the editing and effects in an uncompressed timeline. Check out the recent post in the Aja IO forum, titled “Component or SDI, which is better quality?” Apparently, the Sony DSR-1500 does chroma smoothing on 4:1:1 DV when outputting it via SDI. Interesting…
-zolo
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“My brain hurts. Thanks for the help.
Richard”
Richard,
Your workflow looks perfect. Good luck on the DVDs!
-zolo
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Actually, with a little modification, this is what I do. Although instead of capturing the DV material via SDI I use component through a DeckLink SP, and all looks good. But I will check out that thread about component vs. SDI.
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Hi!!
May I know if this is the very bestest way to maintain quality in burning to a DVD too, if I am using PAL format? Because the Uncompressed options for Sequence settings have a 4:2:2, which I’m not sure what it means. Or do I use the Animation setting even though my footage is video?
Also, there was this long post in another thread (https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=8&postid=912288) about a DV work flow, which I’m not really sure is what, but seems to say that 10-bit uncompressed settings will cause the video to change in field-dominance?
I have DVD Studio Pro by the way..
Sorry if I should have started a new thread, but I thought my question was pretty similar (except I’m using PAL) and this thread has one of the most detailed instructions on this matter that I could find..
Thanks for any and all help and have a good day!!! 🙂
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Um.. just to be more specific,
my Compressor is version 1.2.1 ( =( )
and DVD Studio Pro is 3.0.2 ( =) )Thanks
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