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DVD output
One of my regular clients has XPRESS PRO 5.6.7, Sorenson Squeeze and Sonic ReelDVD. All of their finished shows, ranging from 30 – 60 minutes, are output to DVD. The standard workflow has been, from the timeline to a Quicktime Reference Movie, into Squeeze for MPEG2 compression, and to REELDVD for burning to DVD. Is this the most efficient workflow given the equipment available? It works fine, but takes a lot of time- let’s say 3-5 hours per program, depending on length. I know rendering takes time, but I am wondering if there is a more efficient way. Since I have been doing it this way for years, I am wondering if I am behind the times.
One more thing. They are considering upgrading to Media Composer in the future. Would that change anything?
Mikey
Avid Xpress Pro Mojo 5.6.7
WindowsXP 2002
HP Workstation XW8000
2.80 Ghz
2.0 GB RAM -
5 Replies
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Software encoding is what is taking the time. I believe that Sorenson 6 has optimized transcode times as well as use more cores which speeds things up. I do the same workflow you do – But I use Carbon Coder from Rhozet for encoding – a near real time encoder from HD master to SD, with nice REC709 to REC601 color space conversion. Great quality, but not cheap.
Michael
Michael Phillips
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Thanks. Will look into Carbon Coder. This is not my system, so I can’t just go out and buy stuff. I can, however, recommend. The HP Workstation that drives the Avid is a single processor unit. Do you think the Carbon Coder would speed things up on it?
Avid Xpress Pro Mojo 5.6.7
WindowsXP 2002
HP Workstation XW8000
2.80 Ghz
2.0 GB RAM -
Michael (Phillips)… I hadn’t heard of Carbon Coder before and just saw a picture of the interface. It looks remarkably similar to Canopus Procoder. Near identical. Any thoughts on that?
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Media Composer won’t change this workflow, as it still depends on external/3rd party apps to seal the DVD deal.
You didn’t mention the purpose of the DVD. Is it for client approval or final presentation (with chapters, menus and such). If the former, just get a cheap DVD recorder from Best Buy, hook it up to the system, hit record and playback your timeline. That’s the fastest, most efficient way to do this.
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The purpose of the DVD is 2-fold. It is how they archive old programs, and how they distribute copies- mainly to participants as a thankyou. They used to just burn a DVD copy to a cheap external DVD recorder. They had a lot of complaints about the discs not playing on home machines. They also had problems making copies. (They have one of those 5 burner copy systems) When I came on board, I started making the discs the way we are discussing, and the complaints stopped completely. There are no menus, but I do add chapter markers for individual segments, mainly as a convenience.
Perhaps a new external recorder may be in order. I am willing to sacrifice chapters for speed in this case, if the DVDs recorded are consistantly solid. (Example: We don’t want to send an unplayable disc to the Mayor)
Avid Xpress Pro Mojo 5.6.7
WindowsXP 2002
HP Workstation XW8000
2.80 Ghz
2.0 GB RAM
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