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Printing anamorphic timeline to tape
I’ve edited a two-hour program for someone and am having trouble just getting some form of the movie to someone for dvd mastering.
I shot and edited in anamorphic. I imagine they’ll want to make a standard 4:3 DVD.
I was going to attempt a master on my hokey system, but after rendering all the other effects, I brought the anamorphic sequence into a new 4:3 sequence – the rendering time to situate all that was going to be 14 hours!
So, I thought I’d just skip the mastering and export the timeline to tape and let the replication company handle the mastering.
I haven’t printed to tape in a while and I’m not sure how to proceed. Some questions are simple and some are not.
I tried PRINT TO VIDEO with my camera (linked via Firewire) in both CAMERA and VCR modes – both didn’t record anythihng.
And what happens to the anamorphic settings as it goes back out to a 4:3 recording system? Is it going to irretrievably squeeze the picture?
Any other tips welcome – I’m sure I’ll hit more snags as I go.
Many thanks,
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6 Replies
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[Maria Luisa Gambale] “I shot and edited in anamorphic. I imagine they’ll want to make a standard 4:3 DVD.”
You are under a common misconception. Anamorphic video is encoded to MPEG-2 for DVDs with a flag that makes it display 4×3 on a SD TV and widescreen 16×9 on an HD TV.
You should simply export a self-contained QT file from FCP using “same settings” and have a pro encode that, or you can do it yourself using Compressor. In either case, the file you use should be widescreen anamorphic.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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Thank you so much. That seems like excellent advice. The problem is that I only have iDVD – I don’t have DVD Studio Pro. So, if I were going to actually give them a DVD master, I’d be limited to a 4:3 DVD, no?
I guess it’s looking like I should just suck it up and loan them a drive with a Quicktime Movie file that sticks with the anamorphic settings?
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[Dave LaRonde] “your DVD guys are certain to be able to work with either codec”
Better still, ask them what codec they want.
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[Maria Luisa Gambale] “I guess it’s looking like I should just suck it up and loan them a drive with a Quicktime Movie file that sticks with the anamorphic settings?”
Bingo!!! That’s exactly what I’d do…
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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Thank you very much, David. And to all of you. You’ve been great and certainly saved my sanity for yet another day.
cheers,
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From the perspective of someone who is actually currently authoring a DVD involving a contributions from more than 60 individual people, with varying levels of experience – I’d really rather not get a DVD with the program. Ideally I’d have the highest-quality anamorphic tape they could provide. Next best, if possible would be a good quality digital file (50Mb/s DV or, Blackmagic codec, or something like that, still native anamorphic full frame). If none of those, then muxed program-stream MPEG2 at 8Mbit or more, still native ratio (not letterboxed).
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