Compression for HD video?

[Craig Seeman]

[David Bauman] “Some tutorial told me that HD videos don’t need to be compressed.”

Huh? Sorry but I can’t imagine any tutorial suggesting that.

[David Bauman] “However, when I do compress via a setting such as “MPEG-2 6.2Mbps 2-pass”for DVD 90 min quality, I preview it and it looks like it’s lost tons of quality”

If you’re going to make a DVD, welcome to the world of downconverting HD to SD. You have no choice but to lose tons of quality. There are ways to mitigate some issues but without any information I can’t make any suggestions.

These two articles will give you an idea of what you’re up against
https://www.xdcam-user.com/2011/03/getting-good-sd-from-an-hd-camera/

https://www.xdcam-user.com/2009/11/getting-sd-from-hd-and-the-problems-of-oversampling/

Basically you may have to soften the image.

[David Bauman]

I actually made a dvd out of this same footage the other day as a test. I literally put my footage in compressor. I don’t remember the setting I used, but I literally sent it to compressor, when it finished, a dvd icon popped up at the bottom of my computer. The computer is a mac by the way, don’t know if that helps. The dvd burned. When I took it out it worked on a television and it worked on the computer. And it was a relatively small file. It was forty minutes long, and it lost some but not much quality. Everywhere I’m looking everyone says that you can’t make a DVD with HD footage without losing tons of quality. I lost a small bit of quality at best. All of this was a complete accident. I’m not expecting perfect, high definition Football style footage, just footage that can be put on DVD for instructional commercial use.

Is there a setting that I need to use? I didn’t soften the quality either, at least not consciously before putting it through compressor. I just dragged the settings I hoped might work, and a dvd icon popped up as soon as the compression was done and a dvd began to burn.

[Craig Seeman]

Try this in Compressor
File/New Batch From Template
and select the Create DVD icon
Click Choose
Then add your source file
Submit

[David Bauman]

Thank you so much. The DVD burned. And I see what you mean about needing to soften it. I didn’t view the last one on a 27 inch screen, but the resolution begins to fall apart when I viewed it in that size. Otherwise, on a moderately sized screen though, it didn’t lose too much quality.