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Compressor fails or makes files too big for DVD
I finished editing my first movie (88 minutes including credits) in FCP 5.1.4 and am able to export a self-contained QT movie that plays fine with QT Player (it’s about 16 GB). I’m trying to use Compressor 2.3 to create files that can be imported into DVD Studio Pro so I can make my DVD master. The QT reference movie and QT conversion (mpeg4) fail in Compressor. I have been able to compress a self-contained movie once but the resulting mpeg2 and aiff files were over 5 GB so I couldn’t burn a DVD. I have doublechecked all my sequence settings (frame size: 1440×1080; vid rate 29.97 fps; compressor HDV 1080i60; aud rate 48.0 KHz) against the export and Compressor settings to make sure they all match my original clips (The only thing on my sequence that’s different than my clips is the audio format – clips are 16-bit and sequence is 32-bit, but I haven’t found where/how to change that.) In Compressor, I choose Best Quality (rather than Fastest Encode) for 90 minutes with 16:9 as my settings and it goes through the whole process and seems to be doing great but at the end it gives a status of “failed” 🙁 I’m working on a MacBook Pro 2.16 GHz Intel Core Duo with 2 GB SDRAM, which I know is at the low end of adequate. I’m already two weeks late on my promised delivery and hate when I cannot keep my word. I’m ready to trash FCP but I don’t want to have to edit this all over again. I’ve already rendered it twice and exported/compressed it a dozen times. Frustrated and desperate… any suggestions?? Would appreciate any guidance on possible solutions (sorry for the wordy question, but thought more details would be better to help troubleshoot) – thanks!
Cheers,
Jeanne
(new FCP user in LBC) -
6 Replies
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[Jeanne Kyle] “I have been able to compress a self-contained movie once but the resulting mpeg2 and aiff files were over 5 GB so I couldn’t burn a DVD”
If you still have the 5 GB files just encode the audio as an ac4 file in compressor and that with the m2v video file will fit just fine.
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Hi Jeanne,
Your .AIFF (88 min) is taking some 960 MB of the memory.
Just export your audio as AC3 (Dolby) with high bit rate.
448Kbps will yield high quality and the file will be less than half the .aiff.
If still big, low the bit rate.
rafael -
[Rafael Amador] “export your audio as AC3 (Dolby) with high bit rate.
448Kbps will yield high quality”Thanks for the suggestion! My computer’s been tied up trying to make an mpeg4 for the last 10 hours (argh!) but I will give that a try tonight when I get home from work. Is ac3 (someone else suggested “ac4”) a setting in Compressor? Should I just be using the Dolby produced by Compressor instead of the aiff? I’m just learning all this… By the way, love your promo video on your website and very cool effect at the end.
Cheers,
Jeanne
(new FCP user in LBC) -
ac4 was a typo, no such thing. ac3 will do the trick. and yes you would use this instead of the aiff.
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Hi Jeanne,
Aiff is uncompress so, iin theory, better quality than than AC3 (Dolby in Compressor). The fact is that an AC3 at high quality sounds as good as an .aiff, at least for my ears.
The advantage of this one is that is scalable so you can set the bit rate according to your needs. You can low the data rate of the audio to give more to the video. You also need AC3 when you want to put more than one audio track in your DVDs.
However if the duration of your DVD is less than one hour, you still can use .aiff and even rise a bit the bit rate of your video.
Rafael -
Thanks so much for all the info about audio! I successfully compressed my video with Dolby audio and it’s 4.4 GB so I’m making progress 🙂
DVD Studio Pro now won’t let me use the new assets in my project… it says the old missing assets cannot be removed because they are in use and the new audio file type is different. Do I have to trash this project (I had already set up my menu page and linked to chapters) or is there a way to tell it to use different assets? Either way, I should be able to finish this tonight so I’m very happy!
Cheers,
Jeanne
(new FCP user in LBC)
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