• Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

  Huge file size– how to make it smaller?

  Posted by Jeri Rowland on August 13, 2005 at 2:37 am

  Hi,
  I have a project that is about 57 minutes long, and when I export it as a Quicktime movie, the file size is 13 Gigs. There are very few transitions and some text. Is there a way to make the file size small enough to fit on a 4.7G DVD? I started to export using “Quicktime Conversion”, but it estimated several hours to do so where exporting as a QT movie only takes a few minutes. I have a G5 Dual 2G processor. FCP 4. Thanks.

  Jeri Rowland replied 21 years ago 3 Members · 4 Replies
• 4 Replies

• 

  Andy Mees

  August 13, 2005 at 3:43 am

  hey, i get to mention a codec i’ve never used twice in 10 minutes!

  have a look at SheerVideo from bitjazz
  https://www.bitjazz.com/sheervideo/

  this is not a recomendation from experience though there are many recommendations there from regular contributors to this board

  the thing is, your edit is has 13 Gigs worth of raw footage, and theres nothing you can do to make that fit on a 4.7Gb disc without recompressing to a smaller filesize. and thats going to atke some time. you just have to decide what comression to use, and your choice of codec dictates how long its going to take and how good its going to look when you finish. my SheerVideo recomendation is one codec you could use though I don’t if it could compress it down to just 1/3rd the original filesize.

  cheers
  Andy
• 

  Shane Ross

  August 13, 2005 at 4:15 am

  Are you trying to make this 57 minute video something that you play on your home DVD player? What DVD burnig software are you using?

  If iDVD, then export your sequence EXACTLY as you have been, Quicktime Movie, self contained. That this does is make a lossless DV/NTSV QT clip of your show…since DV footage is about 13 Gig per hour. Then import that into iDVD and it will convert it to mpeg-2 and make it a viewable DVD.

  If you are using DVD Studio Pro, Export from FCP using Compressor and one of the mpeg-2 export options. Then when you burn it with DVD SP, it ALSO will make a viewable DVD.

  YOu can’t make a DVD that is viewable on a home player by dragging the file onto the DVD and burning it. That is what is called a DATA DVD.
• 

  Jeri Rowland

  August 13, 2005 at 12:38 pm

  Thanks– just wondering why you don’t use it. Does it cause any problems running other programs?
• 

  Jeri Rowland

  August 13, 2005 at 12:39 pm

  Thanks–
  I am in fact using iDVD, and it does fit onto the DVD (after I posted last night), but it took at least 2 hours to burn. That seems excessive to me, but is it a normal burn time?

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