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Trying to fit a 1.5 hour concert on DVD (and still have it look good)
I’m trying to make an .mov out of Final Cut 6 of an hour and a half long concert. All of the settings I’ve tried that would make it look good are coming out with 6 to 9 GB .mov’s, which of course won’t fit on a DVD. I’ve tried MPEG-2 with Linear PCM and MPEG-2 with AAC and changing how often it keyframes. I’ve tried it with and without Compressor. Then I tried an H-264 and it rendered for hours and still said it had 5 hours to go. Is there any way to get a smaller file size that still looks good and get it to export in a shorter amount of time if possible? I have to get this to a client tonight so any help is appreciated. -Ali Cotterill
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7 Replies
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Well, you can stop trying most of those things because DVDs can ONLY use MPEG II files. Use EXPORT -> COMPRESSOR in Final Cut and go directly from the timeline to compressor.
Try this setting:
VIDEO:
MPEG II
Variable Bit Rate (VBR) Best Quality Setting
Average Rate: 5.4
Max Rate 7.1AUDIO:
Dolby II Audio for DVDTake those files into DVD Studio Pro. I suspect they’ll be fine. If it ends up too big or too small, re-do it and change the “average bit rate” setting up or down to change the size.
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Ali,
There is no magic bullet. There is only so much space on a DVD and you obviously need to find a bitrate that fills that space without going over.
The presets in Compressor are pretty darned good and you should probably rely on them unless you want to start experimenting with 3rd party encoding apps. Your best bet is Best Quality 90-min. prest and be sure to use the accompanying Dolby Digital audio as well, which will limit the audio overhead and still give you very good quality.
I have no idea what you’re tring to do by outputting to h.264 when creating a DVD. You should simply output either a self-contained or reference video at current settings before encoding Compressor. That’s as good as you can do, unless of course you’re timeline is DV, in which case, to preserve your text and graphics from horrible DV compression you should change the compressor setting in Sequence — Settings to Pro Res, before re-rendering the entire timeline. Then do your export and then encode with Compressor.
David
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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Thanks for the information about bit rate. I changed it and it put it through Compressor at the settings you recommended. My only other question is time. It’s been going for 2 hours and says 7 hours remaining. Is there any way around that? I have a G4 laptop with 2GB of ram. -Ali
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If that is how long it say, than that is as fast as it can do it.
Obviously a faster processor will encode faster. My Mac Pro can encode 1.5 hrs in one hour.
Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Director-At-Large
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group -
Ok, cool. Thanks to everyone for their help. -Ali
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I dont see “Pro Res” in FCP 5.1.4
What should I use instead?
I am all the way in the middle of the Pacific Ocean
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If you change the timeline compressor settings and re-render to preserve your text and graphics, DV50 is okay, 8-bit is better, or 10-bit is best. Keep in mind, that you might need to a raid array to play uncompressed without dropping frames. However, that will not affect exports or encodes.
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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