MPG2 out of Final Cut

[Todd Reid]

another option is to export out of FCP as Quicktime (not Quicktime Conversion) and bring that into DVDSP. Once you’ve authored the look of the DVD, let DVDSP do the mpg conversion (build/format).

Why it went away is probably some kind of corruption… trash your preference, repair you permissions, reboot. That may bring it back, but at least you have options.

[Tonycity]

Apperently, when we upgraded to the latest version – we did a clean install vs and upgrade, and that makes you lose the option.

Also, going your way: 1. you’re saying DVDSP can take MOV files? and 2. DVSP will take how long to render all this?

Tony
FCP-HD, G5 Dual
shooting DVCAM and Sony HDV Z

[Colin Mcquillan]

DVDSP will let you import the mov as an asset,, but from my understanding doesn’t do as good a job as compressor,,

I also ran into bitrate trouble a couple times trying this. thought I would save time by bypassing compressor and import a short 8-bit uncompressed .mov directly into DVDSP.. built my title page,, so on,, went to burn,, it took it quite a while to convert the mov,, then started to build,,,, muxing,,, almost done,, *ERROR- Bitrate too high** This wasnt due to improper project settings,, they were bang on,, it was the encoded media…
This same method has worked for me aswell.. so it can be a hit or miss situation.. or perhaps using a lower bitrate codec .mov to begin with could help the situation.

Colin McQuillan
Vancouver BC

[Jeff Carpenter]

Use Compressor. That’s where all those options went and what Apple expects you to use now. You can either:

1) Go to FILE -> EXPORT using COMPRESSOR

or

2) Export a Quicktime refrence movie, open up Compressor and drag it in.

#1 gives slightly better quality but #2 can be a lot faster and it doesn’t keep Final Cut busy which can be nice.

[Rafael Amador]

Hi Tony,
I suggest you to do what Jeff says. Compressor with a ref movie once you have rendered everything. Compressor can take very long time when you send from the time-line, because everything is re-rendered. Also when you work with Compressor with the “Frame Control” in customer is very slow. But if you dont go to change the field-order, the size, and you don’t go to do any retiming, you can work with that option “off”. For me normally it takes to compress the MPG2 a bit more than the double of the duration of the clip. This for a two-passes VBR.
Cheers,
Rafael

[Tonycity]

Sorry, to clarify, it’s a 2 hour piece – that I started at 930am and it stated 66 hours …. it’s now 11:45am and it’s gone down to read 21 hours (54%) – would I still need to worry? If this is the Norm, than I’ll have to deal with it as is. just need to work this into my project turnaround timing.

Tony
FCP-HD, G5 Dual
shooting DVCAM and Sony HDV Z

[Rafael Amador]

If you are compressing the audio too, Compressor don’t see yet the difference and assign the same time than to the video. But the audio compression is done fast. So in the end is the half of the supposed time.
Rafael

[Rich Rubasch]

If you remove the DVDSP app from the apps folder, then do an install of DVDSP 3 you will get the export to MPEG-2 function back and DVDSP 4 will work fine. Just rename DVDSP 3 to something you’ll remember and bring the DVDSP 4 app back in again. The DVDSP 3 install reinstalls the export module.

All our systems are configured this way. This is ideal for us because we use the straight export to MPEG-2 for quick approval DVDs for the client and compressor for the final multi-pass variable bit encodes. Don’t forget that you should still use APack to encode your audio, so you still have to do a two step. I export the AIFF audio track (after a mixdown) then start the MPEG-2 export (single pass CBR arond 6.2 mbps) then I launch APack and do the AC3 encode while the MPEG-2 is cooking. After the AC3 is done I launch DVDSP 4 and by the time that loads the MPEG-2 is usually ready. Otherwise I build a quick menu in Photoshop while I wait.

I am doing all this on a Dual 1-gig G4 machine….my old faithful….this machine is going to be the first piece of hardware to end up in the Tilt Media museum…it has been an awesome run!

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media