authoring a dvd

[Brian Pitt]

You can try just exporting as a quicktime movie. Import that movie into DVD Studio Pro, and then burn to a disc from there. DVD Studio Pro will do the encoding. You can set your bitrates and all that jazz in DVDSP in the preferences/settings menu. Make sure you change the settings in the SDDVD tab. I think it pulls up HD DVD for some reason by default.

[Richard Blakeslee]

Hello Brian,

I’ve been editing with FCP for a few years. Burning my DVDs (until lately) with iDVD. Now I’m using DVDSP. I mostly do short videos, from a few minutes to ten or so. Now my question.

I’ve never used Compressor. I just Export a reference QT, import as an asset in DVDSP (or video in iDVD) and do the menu, etc. and burn. Should I be using Compressor? I feel a little silly never having used it and all the DVD look great. Is there something I’m missing? I always thought that Compressor was to compress a video file down to be small enough to fit on a DVD so I thought it was just for large files.

Thanks for any insight on this.

Richard

[13]

[Richard Blakeslee] “Should I be using Compressor? I feel a little silly never having used it and all the DVD look great. Is there something I’m missing? I always thought that Compressor was to compress a video file down to be small enough to fit on a DVD so I thought it was just for large files.”

Yes use compressor. It will let you get better DVD encodings then just letting DVD SP do it. With Compressor you have the control.

Compressor is also extremely useful to compress for the web, and to compress for many other deliverable options.

[Brian Pitt]

If you are happy with the results, then why bother with another program (compressor)? Compressor will give you a TON of more options for your export than DVDSP will. With DVDSP, you are pretty much limited to your bitrate and whether it is constant or progressive. I find that I have gotten better results using a CBR at about 5.5 MbPS.

But if you are trying to export for anything other than DVD, (say ipod, web, e-mailable quicktime, mpeg 1, etc…) Compressor is your boy!

I personally prefer to use compressor when authoring a DVD over DVDSP, but do what works for you.

[Brian Pitt]

…just a side note

even though you are importing large reference files directly into iDVD or DVDSP, those programs are still compressing the file before they are burned to the DVD.

No DVD play that I know of would be able to keep up with the bitrate of an uncompressed file. besides, a 4.7 GB DVD would fill up with only a few minutes of video.

[Richard Blakeslee]

Brian,

Thanks so much for the info. You’ve cleared up an area that had always been kind of gray for me. I appreciate it.

Cheers,

Richard

[Richard Blakeslee]

Brian,

Thanks so much for the info. You’ve cleared up an area that had always been kind of gray for me. I appreciate it.

Cheers,

Richard