XDCAM EX 30P to SD DVD Questions

[Enrique Orozco]

… 24p full progressive DVDs are within the DVD std. specs. but NOT 30p… if you shoot 30p (as I do…) you can render to 60i for DVD, or try rendering to 24p with your NLE (not sure about the results, better shoot in 24p if you want progressive DVD)…. I even render progressive 30p and got excellent results for my DVDs, but sorry I’m on PC land (Vegas & DVDarch)….

good luck

Enrique Orozco R.
iDEA DigitalVideoStudio

[Craig Seeman]

Doug Jensen (VortexMedia) EX training DVDs were shot at 1080p30, editing in an SD timeline which went to DVD so if you’ve seen his training DVD you’ve seen the results. He once posted his step by step on some forum but I don’t have that readily available.

The real issue centers around the scaling on downconvert to SD.
I’ve seen so many formulas for this and have had issues with each depending on content (except for editing in SD timeline) that I can’t say which works best.

I’m sure each person on this forum will post a success story.

I’d use ProRes self contain, put in Compressor, and turn up the features in Frame Controls that relate to scaling. One issue I’ve had is line twitter on thin lines in 1080p downscaled to SD. Some suggest adding a small blur on the source video to soften the thin lines.

[Craig Seeman]

30p becomes 60i in the downconvert so that’s not a big issue except you don’t regain lost temporal resolution.

[Andy Bissonnette]

Very interesting, maybe I’ve been living under a rock but I never knew you could burn 24p DVD’s. And does every DVD player play that back just fine?

Thanks for the info btw…

[Craig Seeman]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24p#24p_on_DVD

24p on DVD
DVDs, however, are capable of storing the native 24p frames. Every Hollywood movie is laid to disc as a 24p (actually 23.976p – see below) stream. With a progressive-scan DVD player and a progressive display, such as an HDTV, only the progressive frames are displayed and there is no conversion to an interlaced format – eliminating the appearance of any interlace or de-interlacing artifacts. When displayed on a standard NTSC TV (which only display 60i) the DVD player will add 3:2 pulldown to the signal.

[Rafael Amador]

All the Hollywood movies we watch in DVDs are progressive.
The advantage of progressive footage is that you can read it as Progressive, Lower or Upper without any glitch.
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Dean Sensui]

Here’s my setup:

I export a file as Apple ProRes 422 HQ. It’s what’s output by Color so that’s what I’m exporting.

In Compressor, here are my settings:

“DVD 16:9 SD, sharpened 90-min.” This is a slightly modified version of the “90-min best quality” setting.

— 2.0 Dolby Digital -31 dBFS, no compression
— DVD 16:9 MPEG-2, 6.2 Mbps, 2-pass. Detail 20

The frame aspect is 16:9 widescreen. Audio is passed through without any level changes.

Note that setting “detail” to 20 will dramatically increase encoding time. Do a test to see the results before committing a large project.

In DVD Studio Pro:

Click on “Outline” window.
Set the title of the main disk as desired.

In the Outline window, click on “Menu 1” icon.
— Under Menu editor in the Inspector window, set “display mode” to 16:9 Letterbox.
— Do the same for Track 1.

This will create a letterboxed version that will work with 4:3 televisions.

Dean Sensui — Hawaii Goes Fishing

[Kevin Jones]

Here’s Doug Jensen’s workflow:

Many people have written to ask me about my Final Cut Pro workflow for creating DVDs from XDCAM footage. Let me start by saying that I do not claim to be an FCP expert, and my workflow is so simple that I’m surprised I get this question at all. I don’t use any special tricks or extra rendering steps or anything. I just edit and render. Here are the steps I follow for Final Cut Pro.
1) I shoot most footage with the HQ1080/30P Video Format.
2) I open a new Sequence in FCP and use the “DV NTSC 48Khz Anamorphic” preset.
3) I change the Field Dominance to “NONE”
4) I edit the entire program within that Sequence.
5) When I’m done editing, I then Export a QuickTime movie of the Sequence. I choose “Current Settings” and I do NOT choose to “Make Movie Self-Contained”.
6) I then take that QuickTime movie and bring it into Compressor.
7) I then choose the Compressor preset for DVD Best Quality and modify a few of the settings (such as bitrate), but nothing major.
8) After that file is finished rendering, I bring it into DVD Studio Pro and author the DVD normally
These steps are exactly how my EX1 and EX3 DVDs were produced, and it’s the workflow we’ve been using with XDCAM HD and HDV for over three years.
I hope that helps.
Good luck.
Doug Jensen

2.5GHz Quad-core PowerPC G5
Final Cut Studio 2

[Chris Babbitt]

Doug,

Why do you choose to shoot in 1080/30p instead of 720/60p?

[Craig Seeman]

I can’t speak for Doug of course but I’ve watched his DVD and I had already come to a similar aesthetic.

In most cases I prefer the greater detail of 1080p30. The temporal resolution is better than 24p and if you’re not shooting a high motion subject it’s still good.

I shoot 720p60 for sports where having the temporal resolution (less motion blur between frames and possibility of faster camera movement) is important.

1080 also gives you more “frame” to play with when editing in a Standard Definition timeline. It has greater ability to reframe pan, zoom, etc.

It’s basically frame size vs temporal resolution and it really depends on your subject matter and which you think is more important for the shoot at hand.