[Andrius Simutis]

CCEMP and the other high end software encoders can do a multiple pass encode, up to 99 passes, so they get the opportunity to look at the footage over and over and make adjustments. A Cinemacraft rep was explaining to me that the encoder actually takes even more “looks” at the material in each pass, so a 5 pass encode is more like 20 IIRC. Once you get to know the encoder and how to run it you can get very good results with it.
I encode some particularly challenging footage on a regular basis and have been pretty impressed with the results when I’ve used CCEMP. Far better than anything done on the more expensive SD2000 hardware encoders, and much better than what compressor can give you with it’s shabby MPEG2 engine and limit of 2 passes.
I agree that a lot of the studios aren’t what they used to be. There are still some really good ones with talented and experienced people, but sadly the downward price pressure has forced a lot of them to move on.
I’m in the US, otherwise I’d offer to help you out with this. Unless you want to ship a small drive to me that is, then I could definitely take care of this for you.

[Andrius Simutis]

“The Pal NTSC thing is confusing, because the Canon 7D does switch from pal to ntsc, but it is only for playback on a tv. ”

Nope, you can shoot PAL too. You can’t see those frame rates when you’re set to NTSC, but once you go into the MENU and set it to PAL, then you’ll have access to the PAL framerates, 720P @ 50fps and 1080 @ 25fps. And when you’re in PAL mode you won’t see the NTSC framerates.
I don’t think the 5D has this, yet. But the PAL framerate was one of the big selling points for the 7D in EU.

[Andrius Simutis]

Sounds like you took some good precautions, but you have to realize that these cameras are designed and built for this kind of stuff. I shot snowboarding in nasty conditions for years with half as much care as you took and I never had weather related breakdowns.
Pre cooling your camera isn’t really necessary, but bringing it into a warm room from right outside will give you condensation on your gear. When I really needed to go right inside from the cold I’d bag each lens and that would help with the condensation while the lenses warmed up. When I really, really, had to shoot inside after being out in the cold all day I’d bust out a hair dryer or find the hand dryer in the men’s room. Probably a little harsh treatment for the gear in the long run, but it got the job done.

[Andrius Simutis]

Compressor can really fall apart on low bit rates, and getting a DVD9 master (that a replicator can use) out of Studio Pro can be a PITA.
If you have a little bit of money left in the budget I’d suggest getting the encode done by a professional or dropping the $695 for CCEMP aka Cinemacraft Encoder MP https://www.cinemacraftusa.com/
CCEMP works within Compressor, but gives dramatically better results, especially at low bit rates.

[Andrius Simutis]

Data rate for the more modern codecs like H.264 can be much lower than MPEG2 and give better quality since the MPEG2 codec had to be locked in for DVD back in the mid 90’s.
There are too many variables besides bit rate that will impact the quality. Using a higher end encoder with multiple passes and an experienced compressionist can give a much nicer picture using half the bit rate of a CBR encoder that came with your computer.

[Andrius Simutis]

You can do this.
If you use a DL DVD+R, your bitrate will be 2.7 for the video only, assuming you use a Dolby AC3 stereo track for audio.
This will look pretty bad in Compressor because it has a max of 2 passes. Using something that will do more passes will give you more opportunity to save some quality. I’d suggest Cinemacraft’s CCE-MP encoder which works as a plug in to Compressor. It’s $800 and does a good job, but I’ve never gone as low as 2.7 with it. 3.5 looked pretty good and that was fast action stuff with a lot of detail whipping by with camera pans and quick edits.
Keep in mind too that some DVD players may have trouble playing back a burned DVD-9, so your other option is to make this a set of DVDs and split the program over two or more discs.

[Andrius Simutis]

I’m not a lawyer though I did play one on TV, okay that was once and it was Japanese TV, but anyway…
You don’t HAVE TO put any of the DVD logos on your DVD. DVD video logo is technically only legal on replicated DVDs (the ones pressed in a factory, not recorded) so you’d be looking at the DVD R logo, which you don’t really need either.
I’ve never heard of anyone getting in trouble for using the logo, and it sounds like you’re not making a lot of them, but why bother putting the logo on there anyway? My guess is the title or any other info (not to mention the purple back) would let most people know it’s a DVD.

[Andrius Simutis]

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/drozda_jerzy/CEShapeExtruder.php

Check out Multaanon’s CE Shape extruder. It’s free, but limited in what it can do as it’s a workaround. A good workaround and pretty cool, but a workaround nonetheless. Watch the tutorial and see if that’s right for you.

[Andrius Simutis]

So you were able to recreate this? I thought it was just me.
I built a simple comp of text and a color layer to recreate it in a more controlled environment, and sure enough parallel light didn’t display but spot did.

Thanks for taking the time to check it out and report it…even if there isn’t an immediate fix.

[Andrius Simutis]

Interesting… Spot light works, but paralell doesn’t. I guess I can work around this, but why doesn’t this work?