HD Show to SD DVD

[David Roth weiss]

[Mike Kearns] “I have a HD show that needs to be down converted to SD and burn to a dvd”

No, you don’t. All DVDs, except BluRay are SD, and you don’t ever down-convert HD to SD before encoding to MPEG2. It’s not only completely unnecessary waste of your time, it’s an unnecessary re-compression step that will make you DVD hideous.

The answer can be found right in the FCP Forum FAQ… Here’s what you would ahve found had you checked there:

How do I create a Standard DVD from an HD Project?
From your finished HD timeline:

File > Export > Quicktime Movie.

Leave it set to “Current Settings”

You can export a Reference movie if you’d like, meaning leave “Make Self Contained Movie” UNchecked.

Take that Quicktime movie into Compressor.

Choose the DVD Compression of your choice, such as DVD 90 Minutes High Quality. Compressor will create a Standard Definition 16:9 MPEG-2.

Also select the Dolby Digital Audio to create the AC-3 audio file.

Launch DVD Studio Pro and bring the MPEG-2 and AC-3 into your project.

Now create a DVD!

DVD Studio Pro will create a DVD in 16:9 widescreen format that will automatically play Letterboxed on a 4:3 TV and full screen on a 16:9 widescreen.

Cool, huh?

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

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

EPK Colorist – UP IN THE AIR – nominated for six academy awards

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

[Scott Sheriff]

Question for David.

In the HD timeline to SD DVD workflow, what is the advantage of exporting a QT movie and taking that into Compressor vs using ‘Export using Compressor’ directly from the timeline?

Scott Sheriff
Director
SST Digital Media
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com

[Mike Kearns]

Thanks, a good friend and fellow cow user gave me the exact same advice, thanks for helping so quickly.

[David Roth weiss]

1) you can keep editing in FCP while Compressor encodes

2) Compressor is faster when working from a single file, because it avoids the look ahead clip by clip encoding features of VBR encoding that pretty much creates more problems than it solves.

I used to know all the proper terms for this stuff inside and out, but I abandoned encoding from the timeline and VBR encoding so long ago that now I’ve forgotten much of the terminology. It was necessary “in the day” when encoding was not as good and when squeezing the most onto a DVD seemed to always be the most important aspect of DVD creation.

3) there are other advantages, but I’m working on too many things to remember them now. Hopefully others here will add a few…

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

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

EPK Colorist – UP IN THE AIR – nominated for six academy awards

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

[Scott Sheriff]

David,
I knew about freeing up FCP to keep working, but didn’t know it made it run faster.
I knew you had good reasons, just hadn’t heard what they were.
Thanks.
S

Scott Sheriff
Director
SST Digital Media
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com

[Paul Liatsis]

Hi. I am involved in the same process. I shot an 80 minute edited piece on my HVX-200. I shot it DVCPRO HD 720 24pn. Now I am finished with all my edits in Final Cut and I want to achieve the absolute best quality DVD I can, regardless of how long it takes. Are there any more advanced settings I can change in Compressor besides from just using the BEST DVD QUALITY preset? Also, is there any difference outputting from my final cut timeline directly into compressor than making a quicktime reference file? Thanks for any and all help!

[George Sloan]

Hello David,

I am searching for the best quality decision in converting High definition 1080i
(using canon xha1 to FCP 7 Pro on Mac Pro Intel ) to deliver to local origination cable broadcaster.

It is a 30 minute program i have airing for several months. The question is how to best deliver
on DVD in 4:3 letter boxed for best quality. What is best workflow? Settings in FCP? and best codec.
I like the look of Jpeg photo.

Currently I edit in HD1080i..then cut and paste into sd timeline. Long render. Then compress to quicktime.

Deliver on DVD to broadcaster that auto coverts everything to 4:3 before airing.

Thanks GEORGE

[David Roth weiss]

George,

It sounds as though you want to deliver a file on a DVD rather than a playable DVD video. Is that correct?

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.com

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

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

[George Sloan]

David,

So far iv’e always delivered a playable DVD to the station for broadcast but have recently
considered delivering a quicktime file on DVD non playable. Is that what you mean? sounds like the end
result would be better? Never tried that.

George

[Walter Biscardi]

[george sloan] “It is a 30 minute program i have airing for several months. The question is how to best deliver
on DVD in 4:3 letter boxed for best quality. What is best workflow? Settings in FCP? and best codec.
I like the look of Jpeg photo.

Currently I edit in HD1080i..then cut and paste into sd timeline. Long render. Then compress to quicktime.”

Pasting into an SD timeline is the worst thing you can do. FCP is terrible at conversion of HD to SD. At the very least send your HD Quicktime movie of the timeline to Compressor and have Compressor make the conversion.

A much MUCH better way would be to invest in something like an AJA Kona board which does full broadcast conversions in realtime. That’s what we do here.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media

“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” Winner, Best Documentary, LA Reel Film Festival.

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