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workflow from Final Cut 6 thru DVD Studio 4
First I want to apologize for the lengthy topic and question (s) I have been shooting and editing dirt track racing videos since 2007. I primarily make highlight videos to play on our site as well as You Tube and now FaceBook and produce full length DVDs to sale. Until my purchase of a JVC GY-HM750U this spring I had been shooting with a JVC HD100 that recorded on dv tape and shot in HDV 720p The new camera shoots 1080 on SD cards. Finally got with the times and went tapeless. I have however purchased a firestore from Focus an MRHD-100 for the older camera. I have basically learned or tried to learn Final Cut and DVD Studio 4 on my own trial and error. My old work flow consisted of shooting, digitizing thru a deck and producing my videos in Final Cut. Whenever I seen the popup, which was not very often until I purchased my new camera, “Sequence settings do not match clip settings would you like to change sequence to match clip settings” I would always say no. This work flow produced decent videos for the internet and DVD. I knew i was dumbing down the footage and not getting the best quality doing it that way. Especially after purchase and use of the new camera shooting in 1080. And then there is the issue of using a several different types of formats in the same timeline. I have Elmo POV cameras that shoot in 640, the JVC HD100 720HDV30p, JVC GY-HM750U 1080, Jones POV camera 640, Sport Action POV camera 720 and finally my new GO-Pro in-car POV cameras that shoot in 1080I 30P. The GO-PRO’s do have some options.
I recently attended and spent a small fortune doing so, a training on Final Cut and it’s other components Motion, Color, Sound Track Compressor and DVD Studio Pro. I won’t say where however, I did not come away feeling like a Genuis. So far everything I learned has slowed my workflow and caused some problems that I am beating myself up about trying to fix.
The most recent is I just put together a video involving just one of the cameras mentioned above the new JVC 750U that shoots in 1080 on SD cards. Everything went together fine in Final Cut. I changed the settings in the timeline to match the new camera clip settings when the popup asked and it looked great on the canvas when i got it done. When I made a short video from the same footage for the internet compressing with a setting recommended for the internet and sites such as FB and YT by the instructor of the training I attended it seemed to play and look well. It had the 16X9 letterbox look with black areas on top and bottom.
HOWEVER, when I took the same timeline and compressed it using the same workflow as I have always done, I send it to QT Movie create a file and then take that file to DVD Studio, The finished result is a DVD with video that looks kind of grainy and does NOT have that letterbox look as the video used on the internet does. It fills the screen and has somewhat of a stretched look. I am currently compressing the same sequence or timeline thru compressor using another recommended setting by the instructor and it is taking several times longer to complete and is not done at the time of this posting. I really was hoping to shorten my work flow. I hope you can help
Thanks
Tony R. Anderson
Dirt, Dust and Speed -
3 Replies
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Well that’s one long story. In nutshell workflow goes like this: Edit footage in FCP in native or ProRes codec, lock edit, put compression, if necessary, and chapter markers, send to compressor, use ready-to-go preset for DVD or create your own. Open DVD Studio, create project and assets, import video and audio, create track and menu, add buttons, simulate, build, test and, if everything works fine, burn disk.
Sony PMW-EX3, Canon Mark II 5D, FCS3 in Moscow
http://www.mokaeff.com -
While that is informative It does not help. You obviously are a seasoned editor. You are dealing with a seedling editor. My main question in that long story was: Why does the project I am looking at look just fine while playing on the timeline and watching it in the canvas. AND why does a compression of that same timeline sequence done in compressor or simply exporting it to QT conversion play just fine thru QT player on my computer or after it is uploaded to You Tube OR FaceBook? However that same file does not even resemble what it looked like in Final Cut after sending it thru DVD Studio Pro.
Like I said in the previous post this problem pretty much did not come up until I started shooting with my new camera and adjusting the timeline to match settings for the clips the camera is producing. That would lead me to believe there is a setting in DVD studio Pro that is wrong or I must change what I have been doing in compressor. AND again all I used to do to create a DVD from the timeline of a project I was working on was export it to Qt Movie and then load that file into DVD studio pro and all was harmonious.
Thanks,
Tony -
When you put video other than MPEG-2 in DVD Studio Pro you let it do encoding. My personal attitude is do encoding yourself and let DVD Studio Pro only multiplex.
You said obvious change happened when you started working with material that came from new camera. Your tape camera gave you HDV, new camera gives you HD, thought I’m in total dark as to what codec it uses. You did not say nothing about it.
What is my advice to you: Send a limited portion of your edited time-line to compressor, use preset for creating DVD (best quality 90 mins, for instance), import two files (ac3 and m2v) into DVD Studio and format a DVD on your HDD. Test it. See what works, what not.
My believe is DVD Studio could handle HDV codec pretty good since it was essentially the same old MPEG but it couldn’t pull off the trick with new codec whatever they use in your new camera.
There is no silver bullet. You have to tweak forkflow a little bit to accommodate your production needs.Sony PMW-EX3, Canon Mark II 5D, FCS3 in Moscow
http://www.mokaeff.com
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