[Brian Thomas]

Wow, that was quick, thanks!

I’m a bit naive about that part of the process. Are there some steps or is there a conversion process that I would have to go through so that I could easily mix the different formats?

Or might you, or anybody else, know of a pretty small camcorder producing 25 or 50Hz?

[Brian Thomas]

OK Tim but I warn you, I’m now holding my breath! 😉

[Brian Thomas]

It was fun going back over the steps and handy for me as who knows when all those shows etc will start again. By that time there’s the risk I’d have forgotten what was involved so documenting it all here was for me too. 😉

Maybe give it a try some time when there’s no pressure just to make sure it all works for you.

[Brian Thomas]

So, Luke, I got special dispensation to do this today – lucky me! 😉

Here’s what I did and I’m certain other people would have different approaches.

Background: I (usually…) do lots of video work for local amateur groups and schools thus my continuing need for DVDs.

Perhaps I’ve put in too much detail below but less experienced people might benefit.

– I go through the project timeline and put in the Chapter Markers in appropriate places with some text. eg., “Act 2 Scene 3” etc

– Then I go through the project again and created a short video based on the content of the project. Perhaps 40 seconds long (plus or minus 20 seconds) made up of extracts from the project with a moving title across the top and other relevant information. For the sound I edit in some music probably from the show. That’s going to be the Background video for the various DVD screens – see below.

– Now, “Share” a “DVD” (it’s probably one of your “Destinations”..?) and click on “Settings”

– Output Device: for me this is “Hard Drive” because I like to separate DVD image creation and the actual burning of a DVD. If you have an appropriate DVD drive connected at this point then you’ll also have a choice of writing to the DVD directly. As far as I can see this option doesn’t leave an image for burning later although it will ask if you want to burn a second copy and so on. Once you decline then it wipes the temporary directory. In my opinion, if you’re going to make a number of DVDs you’re better off using “Hard Drive” and then running the DVD player app to make sure everything’s OK before committing to the burn.

– Layers: I’ve left this as Automatic

– Build Type: Not sure about this. Might have to actually look at some documentation…?

– Disc Template: Black – but this is, I think, irrelevant as I use my own video as the background. See below.

– Title: I put in a space character here. Blank will make FCPX insert the name of the project which is OK for me but garbage to the end viewer. My “problem” here is that by default FCPX puts the project name and Duration in the top left hand corner of the menu screen using the ugliest font imaginable. Funny that, normally Apple demonstrate good taste but not with this one. I have written to them asking for an option to suppress this ‘feature’ but who listens to the little guy? Anyway, to get rid of at least the project name you can fool it by leaving a single blank character. I can’t find a way of suppressing the Duration numbers. Sigh…

– Volume name: Anything that is meaningful to you.

– Color Space: Probably based on your footage? PAL or NTSC?

– When disc loads: I have “Show menu” because I always have one but it’s good to have the option of playing the DVD immediately.

– Markers: I don’t click this as I don’t want their ugly, distracting font at the bottom of the screen. If I wanted something I’d use my own choice of ugly font at the bottom of the screen when editing the original project.

– Loop: I don’t check but it’s there if ever I needed it.

– Background: This is where my beautiful Background Video goes.

– Logo and Title image: Nothing – it’s all in my little Background video

– I don’t know about Include captions and Burn in captions: – too clever for me.

The DVD creation process ends up by giving you a main menu screen with your Background video playing and at the bottom there’s a play symbol to the left and an open book symbol over to the right for the Chapter screens. The Chapter screens (Background video still playing!) contain up to six entries with the Chapter text etc in the same ugly font for consistency.

For actual DVD burning I use a useful Windows based program allowing me to steadily cycle through the five DVD burners I have stacked up in a corner. It’s called Imgburn and I just thought, I haven’t sent the author any money for a bit – on my to do list for today!

I know you can also use Compressor to make DVDs. Perhaps there’s a good reason to do this but with all this functionality right there within FCPX, I can’t (yet) see the point of using that.

The question remains: how can I over here in PAL land make an NTSC DVD? I notice that the “Color Space” Setting mentions PAL. Perhaps it’s a question of somehow converting the .mov file of the project from PAL to NTSC? I’ll have to look into that in case a problem occurs with the long-discontinued Encore.

Let me know how you get on.

[Brian Thomas]

No problem but give me a couple of days.

[Brian Thomas]

David, are you still stuck with this? I created a PAL DVD out of FCPx recently (I’m in Europe) BUT I also needed to create an NTSC version. Couldn’t work that out so went back to Encore (I have Mojave running in another container on my laptop) to do the whole thing. But what I did in PAL was pretty good with a 40 second background screen (made, of course, in FCPx) and chapter markers automatically spread out over several screens.

If you’re still having problems then I’ll go into more detail.

[Brian Thomas]

Well thank you both for the prompt replies. That proxy thing is definitely worthwhile and makes perfect sense! As for the multiple warning message, well, I’ll just live with the extra seconds it takes. Thanks again.

[Brian Thomas]

WOW – this is just great! Thanks so much Joe – you have made this process so much easier for me. I’m now a ‘subscriber’ of yours.

Near Geneva, Switzerland

[Brian Thomas]

Many thanks for that Eric!

Near Geneva, Switzerland

[Brian Thomas]

OH… I think I may have answered my own question. I exported using “Apple Devices 720” which (after a long time) gave me a .M4V file of about the same size as the original .MP4 file. I changed the file type to MP4 and Quicktime had no problem playing it. Would this be the way to go? Many thanks in advance for any advice here.

Near Geneva, Switzerland