FC Express to DVD, best quality?

[Natehurwi315]

You could use IDVD, depending on the circumstances of your project…it’s rendering capabilities aren’t the best, but do a fine job in my eye. The only problem I see with it is that it takes forever to encode things. If you are doing this for a client and would like the best render quality possible…I would look into apple’s compressor:

https://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/compressor/

It’s not too complicated and you can customize your own settings and create the presets you want for rendering…I have used it a little bit, but just look what it’s done with apple’s trailers, quality-wise. Hope this helps!

Nate Hurwitz
Film/Video Editor
http://www.weallsellout.com
“We all live in a yellow submarine”

[Tom Meegan]

As mentioned above you will want to look into a program that specializes in compression if you want to chase quality.

Apple’s compressor is a good choice. So is BitVice

https://www.innobits.com/

So is MegaPEG.X

https://www.digigami.com/products.html

and if you go over to the PC side there are even better choices, or so I hear.

Encoding mpeg 2 files with an eye toward quality is truly as much art as science. The folks who do it for hollywood releases use very expensive hard ware, and specialized technicians to do this work. It is a bit of a miracle that the “everything behind closed doors” iDVD does such a good job with most footage.

You can invest a lot of time and money in getting the “best quality.” How far you choose to go to pursue that quality depends on your audience, your client, your budget, and your delivery schedule.

Best,

Tom

[Tom Wolsky]

And to add that to that you will need a DVD authoring application.

All the best,

Tom

Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 2 Editing Workshop” Class on Demand “Complete Training for FCP5” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy” DVDs