• Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

  professional quality encoding

  Posted by Jack Nastowski on August 23, 2006 at 1:53 am

  I’m compressing UNCOMPRESSED SD sequences for DVD and I am trying to figure out the best method for compression.

  Does anyone know what programs professional post houses would use for DVD compression? Is Compressor good enough?

  Right now, I’m thinking for best results I should use 2 Pass VBR 3.0-8.0 vbr. I also read about manually adding compression markers. Is this how professionals encode?

  I realize I am asking a pretty big question for just one post- Are there any turtorials or articles dedicated to professional quality compression?

  Thanks,
  Jack

  Ben Holmes replied 19 years, 8 months ago 2 Members · 1 Reply
• 1 Reply

• 

  Ben Holmes

  August 24, 2006 at 12:54 am

  For what it’s worth, I’ve made a number of retail DVD’s using compressor. If your source material is good, the results are good. Just never expect the DVD to look as good as the uncompressed footage (Mpeg 2 is pretty sucky really) and take the time to test burn a disc and view in on a TV with a decent DVD player – it gives a much better impression of the quality than viewing it on a computer. The VBR settings you describe sound fine although I have never got as far as compression markers. I was once told that most ‘hollywood’ DVDs use no more than 5Mb/s bitrates, so I suppose they have better compressors and markers…

  Other people swear by Cleaner Pro, which has been around for a long time, and is still considered the industry standard.

  Take a look at the DVD Studio Pro forum – that’s good advice, it’s helped me a number of times.

  Ben

  Editec Broadcast Editing Ltd
  EVS & FCP specialists for live OB operations.

  Producer/Director “The Supercar Run” now available for international distribution from http://www.electricsky.com

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