How do you export an HD project

[Jeff Brown]

DVD-video (NTSC) is _always_ 720×480. You get a 16:9 aspect by setting the project to “widescreen”, and export 720×480 anamorphic (with a 1.2 pixel aspect ratio).

-jeff

[Steven L. gotz]

Do you have a HD DVD player? Blu-Ray? Sony Playstation? XBox?

If not, then you can’t play HD material on your HDTV anyway. So go buy one, then we can just tell you to export the format best liked by the device you buy.

Steven

https://www.stevengotz.com

[Larry In lv]

Then would it be better to capture at 1920X1080 and then scale the footage down to 720X480.

Or to capture at 720X480 in the first place.

I think capturing at the larger is would make for a sharper picture when it is scaled down, plus I would also have the option to “pan and Scan” within the picture if need be.

Larry in LV

[Steven L. gotz]

[Larry in LV] “I think capturing at the larger is would make for a sharper picture when it is scaled down, plus I would also have the option to “pan and Scan” within the picture if need be.”

That is exactly right. I often edit HDV footage in a SD project, or even smaller custom project, especially when I know that the ultimate goal is for a web page anyway.

Steven

https://www.stevengotz.com

[Greg.ekborg]

I believe the best practice for any video or anything that deals with resolutions, ie print, web etc….

You always wait til the last possible piece of the process to down res.

In other words, with video…if you shoot in 1080, you should edit on your timeline in 1080. Then when exporting to DVD you down res to 480. If you going to web then take the 1080 footage into your compression suite and compress from there from the prestine uncompressed 1080 file.

Thus the results when your DVD player is projected into a large panel tv or a projector on a wall or something like that…the blown up image will still hold up. Don’t waste the nice 1080 footage by down converting into a 480 timeline unless you have to mix 1080 and 480 footage ofcourse.

—
greg
creativeProducer
netXstudios

[Joe Kauffman]

I have a similar question. My footage was shot with a Sony A1 in HDV and I imported it as such, but my goal is to created SD DVD’s after editing. When I first created the PP project, should I have chosen NTSC Widscreen? I chose the HDV option and now when I try to send it to Encore it’s huge and won’t take the file (says it’s too big for DVD). When I export it to Encore in a setting that makes it small enough to fit it’s fairly blurry and pixelated on DVD.

[Jon Barrie]

Are you using Encoder to export an SD DVD preset? Then import that into EncoreDVD? That should give you the best result. CBR will be better than VBR if you have the space. 7200K for video is the highest setting I go with.
– Jon 🙂

How many editors does it take to change a light bulb?

[Joe Kauffman]

Thanks for the reply Jon. I’m kicking off the export in just a bit and will see how it turns out. To this point I’ve been trying to export directly to Encore rather than exporting with Encoder and importing after.

I’ll let you know how it looks! Thanks again!

[Joe Kauffman]

Jon,

I exported the video last night and the quality (at least on my monitor) looks alot better. But when I try and burn it to DVD through Encore it’s too large. Is there a way to tell Encore to auto adjust it to fit? Or can I manually adjust the settings?

When it’s trying to burn the DVD, it says it’s 5.06GB.

Thanks again!

[Jon Barrie]

Which Preset are you using? You can set your own EncoreDVD encoding preset or change the one’s there by:
Right click the clip in the project panel,
Transcode Settings,
Edit Quality Presets…,
Make sure you are on “Format: MPEG2 DVD” in the Export Settings on the right.
Change the presets and watch the Estimated File Size on the bottom next to the right of the timeline scrubber for the viewer. It will tell you the size of the file.
Pick one that’s just above the 4.7 (really 4.3Gig) limit of Single Layer DVD-5. Then change the Bitrate settings to tweak the Est. File Size to peak at the limit. 7M/sec is really high quality. 6 is high. 4-5 is average quality.
CBR will have a better Estimate. VBR will give you a better quality over longer period.
Tweak the Min Target Max Bitrates in VBR with the target being the important one.
Going to MPEG-2 will reduce quality to save space.
It sounds like your project is quite long. Using this method will allow you to hit the Save Icon (Disk) next the name of the preset and you can then save it. Select that one and then transcode now.
– Jon 🙂

How many editors does it take to change a light bulb?