Best Settings for burning to DVD with a Project that has Many Tracks

[Debbie King]

Thanks Grazie:

I never use QT, but I was testing everything since I had used Mpeg2 yesterday and I received noises and freezes. I also saw where the cut didn’t look clean, but when I look on the preview screen in Sony, it all looks well. I am so unclear as to how to fix that. Maybe it was just that particular render. I will test it again.

Many thanks,

Debbie

[Debbie King]

Hi John:

When I burn direct to DVD, I don’t have the choice of selecting settings. It automatically gives me mpeg2 720×480 NTSC 24p. I can only edit settings when I select Render As. I don’t know the bit rate when I burn directly. The automatic size is 7.65GB. This seems to fit well in my Dual Layer, but yes, yesterday I did have problems. I can’t seem to understand what happened to the color. When I played it on my computer after rendering, I didn’t see the color problem, but we played it on a television that was not designed for HD. It was a good television, but not a new one, like a flat screen. Then we dropped in another movie and everything about that movie was absolutely perfect color and sound. Of course it was a studio movie, but I just wanted to know how would I be able to achieve that look on a regular television.

Many thanks,

Debbie

[Graham Bernard]

“When I rendered through Quicktime, it was even smaller, like 2.65GB.”

Grazie

Video Content Creator and Potter
PC 7 64-bit 16gb * Intel® Core™i7-2600k Quad Core 3.40GHz * 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti
Cameras: Canon XF300 + PowerShot SX50HS Bridge

[John Rofrano]

[Debbie King] “What I discovered was when they dropped in a studio movie, the color was great and so was the sound. No changes, like what my film experienced. What do you think could be wrong, or do you think that the copies made for the studio were not compressed?”

Did you color correct on a display that was hardware calibrated? Because that’s what the studies do. If you make it look great on a screen that’s not calibrated, it’s not going to look great on other screen that are calibrated.

I would look at the studio movie on the same display that you color corrected with and see what the studio movie looks like.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Debbie King]

Hi John:

Oh I see! No, I color corrected on my computer. I had in the past, had a monitor connected, but since, I disconnected it and completed my color correction on the computer.

I have an HD flat screen. Should that make much of a difference if I color corrected on that screen and then showed it on a screen that is not HD or flat screen?

Thank you so much John.

Best,

Debbie

[Debbie King]

Hi Grazie:

Yes, when I attempted a Quicktime render, I ended up with a file about 2.5GB or slightly larger. I thought it to be too small, so I started looking into getting a file the size large enough to fit on a DL DVD. Should it make much of a difference?

Many thanks,

Debbie

[Graham Bernard]

[Debbie King] “I thought it to be too small, so I started looking into getting a file the size large enough to fit on a DL DVD. Should it make much of a difference?”
Debbie you are looking through the wrong end of the telescope: QT is not for a playing DVD. YEs as a DATA DVD disc, but not as a free/auto-playing DVD. Files for DVDs are:

1] MPEGS – Video

2] AC3 – Audio

Again, why even contemplate QT?

OK, here’s a screengrab I did for you from Mark’s DVD Bitrate Calculator:-

Here you can see the use of Variable Bit Rate (VBR) Template using:

Minimum: 3.232mb/s
Average: 5.392mb/s
Maximum: 9.448mb/s

You may want to TWEAK-down the max, but it your playtime video would fit a 4.7gb DVD platter.

Here’s where you can use the COW to access the calculator: COW for David’s Bitrate Calculator

However, all of this is starting to pall into insignificance as with my clients they are wanting non-DVD as their choice of distribution. Yet again, we are all standing at a Crossroads of decision making for clients . . . . Actually, the Crossroads are now multiple and not a little confusing either.

I do hope all this has been helpful in shedding some light on what can be a daunting mess of Render issues.

Grazie

Video Content Creator and Potter
PC 7 64-bit 16gb * Intel® Core™i7-2600k Quad Core 3.40GHz * 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti
Cameras: Canon XF300 + PowerShot SX50HS Bridge

[John Rofrano]

[Debbie King] “No, I color corrected on my computer. I had in the past, had a monitor connected, but since, I disconnected it and completed my color correction on the computer. “

So you color corrected on an uncalibrated monitor and you want to know why your colors look different on a TV? I think you just answered your question. You didn’t calibrate to a reference so you have no idea if white is white or red is red or if actually they are grey or pale blue or orange. You can’t trust your eyes because your eyes will adjust and lie to you. if you brain thinks a cloud should be white, your eyes will see it as white even though it’s a pale blue. You can only trust hardware calibration.

[Debbie King] “I have an HD flat screen. Should that make much of a difference if I color corrected on that screen and then showed it on a screen that is not HD or flat screen?”

What you should be doing is using a secondary display that is calibrated with a hardware calibrator like a Spyder Pro 4. Then, and only then, can you trust the colors you are seeing. I don’t know what you man by “HD flat screen”. Is that a computer monitor or an HD TV? If it’s an HD TV isn’t probably worse because HD TV’s use all sorts if tricks to try and make their picture look better than the TV right next to it in the store so they are NOT a good reference. You should use a calibrated computer monitor.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[John Rofrano]

[Debbie King] “Yes, when I attempted a Quicktime render, I ended up with a file about 2.5GB or slightly larger. I thought it to be too small, so I started looking into getting a file the size large enough to fit on a DL DVD. Should it make much of a difference?”

Yes, it makes a difference. DVD’s can only contain MPEG2 video. That’s it. It makes no sense to render your project in any other format than MPEG2. This is what Graham is trying to tell you.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Debbie King]

Hi John:

Thank you so much. This makes so much sense. I was speaking of TV. My funds are so super short that I am not sure if I can purchase the hardware for calibration. Is there any other way I can calibrate my monitor, with perhaps, software?

Best,

Debbie