Exporting to DVD at best quality

[David Bogie]

I don’t know that camera but MPEG2 for DVD is only 400-500 horizontal lines. If you are shooting and of several 16×9 formats that have more horizontal resolution than MPEG2, you must scale it to fit the video window. You end up throwing away a huge amount of detail. that is, if your format has 1000 lines, you’re reducing it to about 300 lines and applying letterbox mattes. That’s a 60% reduction detail.

bogiesanr

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[Richard Holland]

I’ve been reading the manual but it’s huge. This next question may get on your nerves but how do I sale it down? Would that be in DVDsp?

Sorry and thanks

[David Bogie]

I have nerves of mush but I also have not a single customer service oriented bone in my system.
The question doesn’t bother me but it implies a vacuum in your working knowledge about your chosen video format and how MPEG2 works.

Scaling of your HD video footage can take place anywhere in your workflow. what format does your camera shoot? What preset are you using to ingest your footage? What are your sequence settings in FCP?

“Read the manual.”
That’s my standard sig file, I really don’t care if you read the manual or not. But to assume you can just dive in and use a system as superbly complex as Final Cut Studio is, umm, silly. Video is hard. Good video is harder. Good DVDs from good video is harder still; compression is very complicated. But bad DVDs from bad video? That is a no brainer.

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[Richard Holland]

I see. I think what your saying is that I should read the manual.

Cheers

Rick

[Miodrag Ristic]

Rick,

XM2 doesn’t shoot true widescreen, what it does it cuts off top and bottom of your 4:3 footage.
The image is then scaled (stretched) to fit 16:9 frame, so the image looks much softer then if it was
shot as 4:3.
There is nothing you can do about it to fix it.
I know, I tried it, on the same camera, had a client who insisted on having it done in 16:9,
although I warned him (shot some footage 16:9 and burned a DVD quickly).

Next time, either hire a XL2, true widescreen camera, or some of the new HDV cameras for that matter,
or just warn the client or simply decline a job.

Said thing about it is that you can’t go back, it’s shot that way, you don’t have a
quality footage to start with.

If you shot it with 4:3 you could have had 2 options, to persuade client to stay in 4:3,
or to make it look like 16:9 as it was beautifully explained in article called “Faking It”
by Jude Cotter.

Unfortunately, that 16:9 thing on XM2 and similar DV cameras was just a gimmick.
Another said thing was that you learned the lesson hard way, if it was only
a corporate job you could re shoot.

One of my simple rules I follow is: Never promise to do something you are not sure you can do it,
or something you haven’t tested yet.
You might loose a project or 2 along the way. But that’s better than loosing your reputation.

Some clients would appreciate your honesty some won’t.

Good luck

Mio

[Richard Holland]

Hi Mio,

Thanks for your post. I think I will start to shoot in 4:3 again until I can afford a better camera i.e a sony z1.

Thanks again

Rick