Best FCP Workflow Compression Settings

[Daniel Low]

[Jeremy Collins] “What is the best workflow to achieve the greatest final quality?”

Sound like you are trying to fit too much onto the DVD and the quality of your source is such that when heavily compressed it looks crap.

You can save quite a bit of space by using AC3 for the audio.

The other solution is to either split over 2 DVDs or use a dual layer DVD (DVD-9) and burner.

https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/bit_budget.html

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[Jeremy Collins]

Thank you for the response Daniel,

I am using AC3 as audio. It is part of the Compressor DVD preset.

How do professionals get a 3 hour movie onto a single, standard DVD with no quality loss? There must be a way to get it all on there without losing any quality. Thanks again, and all help is appreciated!

[Daniel Low]

[Jeremy Collins] “How do professionals get a 3 hour movie onto a single, standard DVD with no quality loss?”

They use very high quality source material.
They use the very best MPEG-2 transcoders
They use 2 pass VBR
and int he case of a 3 hour movie, they use a dual layer DVD. – DVD9
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD#Dual-layer_recording

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[Tom Laughlin]

Try this, export your movie out as an 8-bit uncompressed file. If it is a 4×3 file, leave it at 4×3, but if it is a 16×9, make sure you select that. I did a test last week with a clip a little over 2 hours long, and I exported out an HD time-line, to a QT 720×480 (16×9) and used “8-bit Uncompressed”as the compression, so at then end, it was a QT movie, now SD, and it was 16×9, and it was opening up at 853×480, which it what QT player does.) Looked great! Drug that SD/QT .mov file into DVDSP, encoded, looked good.

I then did another test, exported out the same 2 hour time-line in QT, as a “1920×1080 HD” (it’s native res) instead of a down-res/coverting to “720×480 (16×9)”, and still used “8-bit Uncompressed” as the compression, saved it out, took forever to encode, then drug that into DVDSP, burnt it out, looked much better. Both looked good, both end up on DVD anyway, the quality wasn’t hugely different, but both looked good.

Tom Laughlin
Producer/Editor
Salt Lake City, UT
FCS3/Sony EX-3/Mac Intel

[Jeremy Collins]

Hi Tom,
Thanks for the response. So you avoid Compressor all together? Also, exporting from FCP using those two techniques gave you a file size that was small enough to fit on a DVD?

Also, I am not positive, but I thought QT files weren’t compatible with DVDSP? I may be wrong on that. Thanks again!

[Daniel Low]

[Jeremy Collins] “So you avoid Compressor all together”

Not the best route but save time at the expense of quality. DVDSP uses plain old Quicktime for MPEG-2 compression so you don’t get access to all the cool stuff in compressor if you go that route.

[Jeremy Collins] “but I thought QT files weren’t compatible with DVDSP”

Anything QT can be taken into DVDSP. Quicktime is at the heart of the operating system so any application or toolset can access any Quicktime codec (in theory).

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[Daniel Low]

A 2 hour uncompressed HD file will be nearly 1TB!

Nice to have all that spare drive space…

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[Jeremy Collins]

Thanks for the response. Yeah, that is my worry. Cutting it down to size. Time isn’t an issue, quality is. It is a film that I plan on submitting to film festivals and such, so I need to get it on DVD at the ultimate best quality. I can’t find a process (whether it be by testing setting myself or reading online) that will deliver great quality. It all comes from cutting down the file to be DVD size. Thanks for any insight!

[Tom Laughlin]

It’s a great question, DVDSP doesn’t use file size of the source, it uses the “time” of the source file, to determine what to do with the file, and you can see in the upper right hand corner of DVDSP, there is a meter, showing you if the file will sustain itself and fill the DVD’s maximum space.

So, if you import a file into DVDSP, and it’s a 2 hour file, it doesn’t matter if it is an 16GB file or a 16MB file, it will automatically calucate the encode, and how much compression will be needed. Another thing, if the file (your QT .mov) is about 3 or 4 GB, the compression hit will not be as harsh as a hit from a file that is around 8GB. “But”, remember, the source file, if it is uncompressed to begin with, it will not take 2 hits. People say that when you use Compressor and then use DVDSP, it takes 2 hits, the first is big, and the 2nd, not so much, it’s more of a DVDSP format-check, not an actual encode, but in a sense. There’s no control over a file once it hits DVDSP, so that’s why you send it out of FCP uncompressed, and let it take just one compression hit, or more like a pass, not a hit. Also, don’t forget to preview the file. When you import the file, whether it is an uncompressed 8-bit QT .mov file (16x), do not forgot to make the file display as “Anamorphic” if your file is a 16×9 file. You have to tell DVDSP to do this, it’s not automatic, and you can also preview the file being played and how it’s going to look once you haev encoded it, using the simulate DVD option. This preview will give you an idea of what it’ll look like.

Also, ensure that you export your file out FCP with the correct frame-rate, so when you import into DVDSP and simulate the DVD, that the frame-rate or file doesn’t jitter or lag, which sometimes can occur. DVDSP should be able to preview this ok, I know that playing anything uncompressed lags in QT player, but DVDSP it pretty good about giving that playback sense.

Tom Laughlin
Producer/Editor
Salt Lake City, UT
FCP7/Sony EX-3/Mac Quad-Core Intel

[Tom Laughlin]

If that is the case, I’d export it the file out as an uncompressed 8-bit QT, as a 720×480 (16×9) file. Or export it out as a Apple Pro Res file, maybe it won’t be as big.

Tom Laughlin
Producer/Editor
Salt Lake City, UT
FCP7/Sony EX-3/Mac Quad-Core Intel