FCP Export for DVD Authoring and Encoding House

[Chris Borjis]

First off DO NOT use “quicktime conversion”

It may actually do some funky things and not what you want….it’s a buggy feature.

export it as ProRes 422 HQ.

no need to give them uncompressed, just wasted space.

that should keep your ae work intact without the heavy compression of DV.

Watch it all the way through, preferably from final cut onto a broadcast
monitor. at the very least watch the quicktime file, to make sure everything is perfect.

[David Roth weiss]

[Terrence Gillian] “They also stated:
“Uncompressed 10-bit would be noticeably sharper than DV.
Your sequence settings should match your source footage, so you should be fine there. You should go to File>Export>Using Quicktime Conversion… Then click “Options” and “Settings” under the Video tab. Under “Compression Type” choose Uncompressed 10-bit 4:2:2. Then click “Size..” and make sure the dimensions are set correctly. The file will be very large, approx. 101 GB per hour of footage. If you’re tight on space, another high quality codec is AppleProRes 422, which will output a significantly smaller file size.”

Phew! Bad information, and I hate to say but my friend Borjis missed a small piece of the puzzle.

Whether you choose to deliver a ProRes file, or 10-bit uncompressed, if you output from a DV timeline, you will be delivering a file that is compressed with the DV codec and then rendered out to a larger file. It will still be DV quality.

To do this properly, you need to change the compressor for the timeline by going to Sequence>>Settings>>Quicktime Video Settings and changing the Compressor to either ProRes or 10-bit, then re-render the sequence, then export a self-contained QT. That way you get a timeline that is actually both compressed and exported using the better codec, and your graphics and text will be vastly better.

BTW, next

[Terrence Gillian] “FURTHERMORE – my main movie timeline contains some animation that was done in After Effects which originally was exported from AE using the DV/DVCPRO codec to my workflow FCP timeline (which was also DV/DVXPRO NTSC). Do I have to go back and replace the animation with a newly exported 10-bit 4:2:2 file and put it in the DV/DVCPRO timeline?”

Your export from AE will be fine if you follow my instructions above. If you don’t, you will compress it using the DV codec and it will look like crap, which is why the fellows at the DVD facility suggested you needed to do something. They just didn’t know the right something.

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

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Terrence Gillian]

Thanks Chris and David. Another question for you guys – when I burned a DVD on iDVD using the same file that I sent to the authoring house, it came out fine. No jitters or anything noticeable that made it extremely weird. To me it looked okay. Does this mean that I can make it even clearer than what iDVD can push out?

Thanks,
Terrence

[David Roth weiss]

Your graphics are getting hammered by the interpolation of color in the 4:1:1 color space of DV. That means that numerous pixels are being thrown out during compression while the color of nearby pixels is being “guestimated.” This causes numerous artifacts that are then further degraded during MPEG2 compression. Rendering the timeline in 4:2:2 color space, such as DV50, 8-bit or 10-bit unc. or ProRes, elliminates the interpolation and your text and graphics remain much more pristine. It does nothing for the normal video.

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

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Chris Borjis]

[David Roth Weiss] “Phew! Bad information, and I hate to say but my friend Borjis missed a small piece of the puzzle.

Whether you choose to deliver a ProRes file, or 10-bit uncompressed, if you output from a DV timeline, you will be delivering a file that is compressed with the DV codec and then rendered out to a larger file. It will still be DV quality.”

I sure did (crazy day yesterday)

make sure you change the compressor for the sequence.

[Terrence Gillian]

Hi Dave,

you’re right. I did shoot in 24pa. Sorry for the mixup.

[Tom Brooks]

Whoops again. The OP said his AE was rendered out as DV. By changing his sequence compressor to ProRes he’ll get no improvement on the DV render. It’s locked in at DV quality. He should indeed go back and rerender from AE in the better codec. Then change his sequence to that codec.