best setting to use in compressor for SD 16:9 DVD

[Michael Sacci]

Make sure that you sequence setting’s field dominance is set to progressive.

Export a ProRes or Uncompressed movie from FCP, at current settings.

In Compressor make sure the m2v preset is set to progressive field dominance and 16:9. If your entire video is less than 60 min. use CBR method of encoding and use 7 Mbps.

[Ryan Archer]

Cool..

I’m just exporting to compressor straight from FCP (through the export option in the menu). Is this still ok to do?

Does “progressive” have much to do with why my aspect ratio keeps coming out incorrect?

So much to learn.

[Ryan Archer]

Worked out fine. Problem is that my text is a bit blocky and pixelated. Is there any way to overcome this? Perhaps a better encoder?

I was just imagining a more crisper rendering of text (it really affects the smaller text).

[Michael Sacci]

Give more info on each step, what is your project settings in Motion, your timeline settings in FCP, and then your Compressor settings. Then how are you viewing the DVD to test quality.

Post a still a sample of your graphic .

[Bj Ahlen]

Is your footage DV25 (“DV”)? If so, search this forum for this problem, which comes up every few weeks.

Make the timeline ProRes to go from 4:1:1 (4:2:0 for PAL) to 4:2:2 when rendering.

[Ryan Archer]

Ok I will do my best…

1. I am using a PAL widescreen (Anamorphic) setting in Motion 3.

2. FCP workspace is DV PAL 48Hz Anamorphic

3. I used the compressor settings you recommended above (mpg2, progressive, CBR, etc)

4. I’m cheating, I have not yet made the rendered file into a true DVD – (i’m just testing with a snippet of the finished movie so it doesn’t take me 3-4 hours every time i want to test a compression setting) I’m viewing the output m2v file with the quicktime player.

Is there a huge difference in visual quality if I make the test file into a DVD and play it back?

Hope that helps.

[Ryan Archer]

I don’t think it is DV footage. I’ve just imported the files straight from motion (.motn files) and then exported the FCP timeline out through compressor.

My pixel aspect ratio is now sorted out – it’s just the mpg2 file that is rendered out (ready for DVD) looks a bit pixelated for my liking.

[Michael Sacci]

Change the sequence to ProRes, if you are rendering to the DV timeline that maybe the issue. You never want graphics to go to DV if you don’t need to and the only reason you need to go to DV is you already DV footage you are working with.

Then you can judge samples but make the DVD in DVDSP but don’t burn a disc just you DVD player to play the VIdeo TS folder. Also DVD is low res 720×480 (or whatever the PAL version of that) so when you watch it on a computer you can be blowing it up a pretty good bit.

[Bret Williams]

How a mpeg2 plays back on a DVD isn\’t controlled by compressor. It is controlled by the. DVD authoring app. There is a setting in compressor that will add a attribute telling DVD sp that it anamorphic, and DVDSP will set the playback option accordingly. But if it\’s displaying wrong, no need to reencode, just make sure the setting is 16:9 for the track in DVDSP.

[Ryan Archer]

What ProRes mode should I be setting it to?

There is like a dozen out there…I just went for 48Hz PAL