Exporting HD to SD Movie

[Chris Poisson]

Well, that’s not right.

If you have fully rendered you timeline, output to a DVCPRO HD movie, self contained. If that movie doesn’t look right, something’s wrong, perhaps bad prefs. If it is, just send the movie to Compressor and chose your SD presets.

Have a wonderful day.

[David Roth weiss]

I agree with Chris. If as you say, the self contained QT export isn’t exactly the same as what you’re seeing on the timeline, then you’ve got other issues.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY

[Michael Sacci]

But if you are exporting and changing the footage to SD in this step, it is problem the worst way to downconvert. The new compressor is good but to get good results it takes for ever to do.

I shoot and edit in DVCProHD but for the time being the client wants masters on DigiBeta, I have a Kona3 card in my Mac Pro and I ended up buy an Io for the downconvert process. The Kona 3 downconverts SDI to the Io which I use to capture with my laptop, the footage looks great, no stairsteping and I capture 10-Bit Uncompress SD.

[Pipito]

Okay, So if I have a fully rendered DVCPRO 72030P timeline and I want to make an SD QT to be used in DVD SP, What would be the best settings to use? Self contained, Using conversion, Compressor, etc.? So I dont get strobing, aliasing, jaged edges, etc.

[David Roth weiss]

Create a self contained QT first, it should be absolutely identical to what you have on the timeline.

Then, you can either use that in Compressor to encode to MPEG-2 and AC3 audio, or you can import the QT directly into DVDSP, which will encode a DVD with just a click of a single button.

Most importantly, in both cases, you have to manually change the settings to make the DVD widescreen, as this will play letterboxed on a 4×3 TV and widescreen on a 16×9 TV. I’m fairly certain you missed that step in your previous effort.

David

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY?

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[Pipito]

Thanks for your help. I did exactly that, but my image (which is composed of graphical text and logos) still looks jittery, jaged, and with strobeing on motion.

These were my steps:

1. Exported a self contained, rendered file from a 72030p time line using current settings.
2. Imported this file into DVD SP
3. I used default bit rates, but I used 2 pass VBR. Motion estimation set to Best. Aspect 16:9
4. track= Display mode 16:9 letterbox

What the F Im i doing wrong?

[Pipito]

Thanks for your help. I did exactly that, but my image (which is composed of graphical text and logos) still looks jittery, jaged, and with strobeing on motion.

These were my steps:

1. Exported a self contained, rendered file from a 72030p time line using current settings.
2. Imported this file into DVD SP
3. I used default bit rates, but I used 2 pass VBR. Motion estimation set to Best. Aspect 16:9
4. track= Display mode 16:9 letterbox

What the F Im i doing wrong?

[Michael Sacci]

To get the best quality here is what I recommend.

From FCP – Export via Compressor (you tie up both programs and it takes longer but better results.)

In Compressor make a new m2v preset.
Field Domin should be on progressive
Frame rate 29.97
Aspect ratio 16:9

USE a CBR instead of VBR at the highest bitrate you can (don’t go over 6.5Mbps)

Encode and use ac3 audio.

[Pipito]

Im very frustrated! I tried your settings, picture quality is better, but Im still getting strobing on the motion graphics. The video looks like it was a slower frame rate when watching the dvd.

please help. I need to turn this project in to the client.

[Michael Sacci]

Are you rendering out the animations in Motion and bring them into FCP or bring in the motion project file and having FCP render it out?

I was using Motion3 for menus and I noticed that unless I render the files I needed to turn on Field Rendering and Frame Blending or less dia lines where stair-stepped.

I was working in SD those.