Composition settings for DVD export

[Chris Wright]

do you want it widescreen or fullscreen? cropped? letterboxed? dvd is 720×480 lowerfield for ntsc. use red giant’s resizer will give better quality than AE’s resize. 23.976? then add 3:2 pulldown https://wwwss. 29.97i? d1 is 486 not 480 dvd. widescreen is 1.2 aspect ratio.
burn a 8-9Mpbs CBR dvd-r not dvd+r. this gives less skipping than VBR and dvd-r is more compatible than dvd+r. dvd-9(dual layer) is good if you can afford it and is the same file size and quality of feature films if you have a 2+hr submission.

https://technicolorsoftware.hostzi.com/

[Mike Cantor]

Thanks Chris! I want full-screen, not wide-screen, and I want it letter or pillar-boxed rather than cropped or stretched. The comp is currently at 30fps.

I appreciate the tips on which dvds to use and the encoding settings (CBR 8-9Mbps).

As for the rest — “use red giant’s resizer will give better quality than AE’s resize. 23.976? then add 3:2 pulldown https://wwwss. 29.97i? d1 is 486 not 480 dvd. widescreen is 1.2 aspect ratio.” This is above my head. I really need some step by step instructions.

[Walter Soyka]

Your 1280×916 comp is almost 4:3. Since all DVDs require 720×480 video, I’d do this:

• Start with a new comp with the NTSC DV preset (720×480, PAR D1/DV NSTC 0.91, frame rate 29.97 fps).
• Drop in your 1280×916 comp. Right-click its layer, then choose Transform > Fit to Comp Width. You will have very thin bars, top and bottom.
• If your comp’s background is not already black, you can change the background color in the Comp Settings window (Cmd-K on a Mac, Ctrl-K on a PC).
• Render, encode, burn.

If you have Magic Bullet Instant HD, you can Resizer instead of fitting to comp. This would be more critical if you were scaling up instead of down, but I trust Chris’s judgement that you would see at least some improvement with Resizer.

If I recall correctly from your last thread, your film is only a couple minutes long, so there’s no need for dual-layer DVDs. Like Chris said, CBR encoding is best, but I would not exceed 8 megabits per second.

You mentioned your project is 30 fps. Is it really 30.0, or is it 29.97? DVDs must run at either 23.976 or 29.97, so it’s best to work at one of those speeds.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Mike Cantor]

Thank you so much Walter!

I did exactly that and I’m rendering away. My original comp was actually exactly 30 fps. I hope I don’t get any wierdness from importing it into a 29.7 fps comp. If I’m not happy with the quality I will try Resizer.

I also tried Dave LaRonde’s suggestion here:
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/2/974010

on setting the output white to 234 and output black to 16.

cheers,
-mik

[Chris Wright]

where the heck did you get 30fps? You probably wanted 29.97. interlaced? check AE’s interpret footage and make sure lower or upper is set correctly as 29.97; it should work better for your render out to lower field and actually be the correct speed now. You may have noticed you lost audio/video sync when you slowed down the video 1%.

As for the resizing, you can try the demo of instant hd and compare it to AE and even try AE’s built in unsharp which can restore some of the softness of resizing.

and there’s a much easier way to make legal broadcast signals. apply an adjustment layer and color finesse with smart limiter on which will fix the luma and chroma. Levels don’t fix chroma, only luma. Did you use color management with SDTV NTSC .601 with a calibrated monitor? If not, you’ll get a random color look on the big screen.

https://technicolorsoftware.hostzi.com/

[Mike Cantor]

Thanks again,

The piece is stop-motion — it’s build from stills that I imported and set at 30fps.

I followed Walters instructions — dropping the comp into a 720 x 480 d1 composition but the resulting video is cropped on the sides on three dvd players I tested it with!!! For authoring I am using Adobe Encore. I tried using both the 720 x 480 d1 and the original 1280x916sq as input and the video was cropped the same way in both cases.

I am tearing my hair out trying to figure this out as the deadline for the SF indie film festival is today! What can I do?

Thanks again,
-mike

[Mike Cantor]

Forgot to mention: it looks fine on the computers dvd player

[Walter Soyka]

[mike cantor] “I followed Walters instructions — dropping the comp into a 720 x 480 d1 composition but the resulting video is cropped on the sides on three dvd players I tested it with!!! For authoring I am using Adobe Encore. I tried using both the 720 x 480 d1 and the original 1280x916sq as input and the video was cropped the same way in both cases…

it looks fine on the computers dvd player”

Some TVs overscan — see safe area for more. This is probably what you’re seeing, since it looks fine on your computer (which will display the full raster). I think it’s really unlikely that it will overscan significantly in projection.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Chris Wright]

did you edit the whole thing and export 30fps?

1. leave interpret footage alone at 30fps fields off(if rendered that way)
2. place 30fps into new comp set same fps for comp as actual footage fps (maintain non-interpolation)
3. timestretch 101.001001% that layer so that both audio and video get stretched simultaneously to 29.97

If that’s the case, the audio was edited to sync at 30fps so you’ll need to drop the 30fps comp into another comp at 29.97 (NTSC DV preset (720×480, PAR 0.91)NOT D1!)) with timestretch on(which will change both the video and audio) at 101.001001% then right click, fit to width will have slight black on top and bottom.

then render out lower field uncompressed or import ae comp into encore. set encore at .91 par, not widescreen, not square, but .91 par.

https://technicolorsoftware.hostzi.com/

[Chris Wright]

I disagree, re-interpretting does not change the speed of the audio too, so you get a small 1% sync issue. If this were true, then a more noticable re-enterpretation of 15fps into a 15fps comp should still sync.

https://technicolorsoftware.hostzi.com/