Exporting Problem

[Jaap Verdenius]

There are many roads to Rome, so let’s get some clarity on the road you took:
– What exactly are you exporting (quicktime/mpeg/else) and how did you do it (export to quicktime movie/ quicktime conversion/ via compressor)?
– Is your sequence (meant to be) 4:3 or 16:9?
– Does the sequence with the bars look squeezed (with tall people etc)?
– If it is a quicktime, do the vertical bars show up when you open it in Quicktime Player?
– Which DVD program do you use?

Jaap

[Sean Perry]

1. I am exporting a quicktime movie and I have been using quicktime movie function.

2. I believe my sequence is 4:3.

3. It doesnt look squeezed with the bars.

4. The vertical bars do not show up on my computer when played, only on the DVD.

5. I have been using iDvd due to simplicity.

[Jaap Verdenius]

If the bars don’t show up in Quicktime Player then you exported correctly from FCP and you might as well be sure that the solution must be found in iDVD. Now I don’t know iDVD and I can’t say anything sensible about it, but there is a way to exclude the possibility that this has anything to do with (sequence settings in) FCP:

– Duplicate the sequence that shows up OK in iDVD (rightmouse it in the browser and select Duplicate)
– Delete all clips from that duplicate sequence
– Select all clips in one of the ‘guilty’ sequences and copy-paste them into the duplicate sequence
– Export the duplicate sequence the way that you did before.

If that proves a solution then the problem must have been within your sequence settings.
If it doesn’t solve it, then you have to check out an iDVD forum.

Jaap

[Sean Perry]

I tried duplicating and erasing the sequence and that didn’t work. And when i tried to export the “good” sequence, it still exports it the way I want it to.

[Jaap Verdenius]

I would try my luck at an iDVD forum – if the sequence settings are not the problem and the movies show up correctly in Quicktime Player then the solution must be found in iDVD.

(You don’t have DVDStudioPro? It is part of Final Cut Studio 2 so if you have FCP6 you also have DVDSP.)

Jaap

[Sean Perry]

Well I have it but I guess I’m too lazy to learn its ways. iDVD is nice and simple. Could using DVD Studio Pro change things?

[Jaap Verdenius]

Considering you have this problem it could be worth a try:

– Open DVDSP
– In the Asset (lower left corner) tab click import and import your QT
– drag it to the track window (to the right of the assets) and tell me if you can see your black bars in the viewer

If not, then that proves iDVD to be the source of the problem.
If yes, well… I wouldn’t know how to explain that, as you told that they WEREN’t there in Quicktime Player. So let’s hope you won’t see them!

Jaap

PS DVDSP is not that difficult as long as you don’t care too much about fancy menus. In fact it has a very nice workflow with FCP when you export through Compressor (!!… by the way – did you try File> Export to Compressor in FCP and see if that would solve the problem?)

[Sean Perry]

I tried DVDSP and no bars appeared which means that it is iDVD’s problem. Which doesn’t make sense to me because I didn’t change any settings when importing.

I guess now I’ll learn the ways of DVDSP.

Thanks for everything, you’ve been a huge help.