[Christopher Smith]

If your sequence is set to Mono then your meters should show only one channel of audio.

I have the reverse issue from time to time, as sometimes I want my Mono sequence (containing Mono & Stereo sources) to export Stereo just once, and of course it won’t. I have to make a new sequence to get a stereo export.

Christopher Smith

CBN International

[Christopher Smith]

Yes, the DVD standard is SD. Make sure you’re exporting as widescreen so the DVD player can fill the monitor with the 16:9 picture. You want to squeeze every bit that you can out of the DVD standard. It’s true that it won’t be as sharp as true HD, but I don’t find it looks too bad.

Christopher Smith

CBN International

[Christopher Smith]

Cinemacraft is great. That’s what I use.

I’ve had some trouble with Adobe Media Encoder – it’s blazing fast and makes good image quality at high bit rates, but I’ve had it drop in occasional nearby frames out of order, requiring careful viewing of all encoded video to catch those. So, I’ve returned to Compressor with Cinemacraft for M2Vs that I’m going to release to others. (I use AME for quick scratch encodes for setting up my authoring projects, especially when I’m still waiting for final assets.)

Hope this helps.

Christopher Smith

CBN International

[Christopher Smith]

You didn’t explain why you maintained the separation between those components as separate assets on the DVD. If there really isn’t any need for them to be separately addressable or used elsewhere on the disc, I would bring them all together into one timeline in your editing software, then it can all play back seamlessly on the disc.

Yes, still graphics are very tricky, because of PAR (pixel aspect ratio), so a still of one size doesn’t match a video of the same size. On top of that, Compressor/DVD Studio Pro cheats and fills the frame with the image. Encode the same video to M2V in Adobe Media Encoder, and you’ll get very thin letterboxing (AME doesn’t cheat).

So you have two things working against you: PAR and DVD player having to jump around to play back the assets. Best to put them together in video editing, and the DVD only has one asset to play.

Christopher Smith

CBN International

[Christopher Smith]

[Mary Nesnay] “the picture jitters/looks pixelated every other second.”

Hi Mary

As your source footage is 29.97 fps and NTSC DVDs are designed for that frame rate, that’s not the issue.
Your DVD playback is periodically (regularly) going fuzzy? This sounds like the GOP length is too long. The I-frame (which has all the picture information in one frame) begins the GOP and then as playback continues with frames containing only some of the picture info (P and B frames), the picture gets worse until finally another I-frame arrives to restore clarity.

As your source video is so short, you also should be able to set compression to the highest bit rate allowed. If this is the only video on the disc, I would compress at 9 Mbps. There are two variables that relate to GOP length, M and N. Set N=15, M=3 in your compression settings.

I haven’t used DVDStyler, and I don’t know what other software you have. If this is the only time you’ll make a DVD, then just dig into the settings within that program to fix your compression parameters. But if you’re doing DVD authoring more often, you should do compression outside your authoring program. Letting the authoring program do the compression is fine for quick-and-dirty discs, but not for discs you want to look good. Use Apple Compressor, Adobe Media Encoder, or something else for compression, then put the .m2v and .ac3 files into your authoring software.

Christopher Smith

CBN International

[Christopher Smith]

The solution would, of course, involve scripting. If only we can convince Adobe to finish Encore by implementing scripting.

Christopher Smith

CBN International

[Christopher Smith]

Rocio,

I read your earlier post and now I realize what I told you is not the solution to your problem. My solution is for a much simpler issue.

Christopher Smith

CBN International

[Christopher Smith]

I’m not familiar with DVDLab Pro, but I believe the principle would be the same as in DVD Studio Pro.

Simply set the Next Jump value to Main Menu. (In DVDSP, this Next Jump value is not visible in Basic Connections; you have to switch to see All Connections.)

When the user hits the Next button, the player will still give them the next chapter, until they run out of chapters on that track. The next press of the Next button (once they’re already in the final chapter of the track) will execute “Next Jump”. So you set that to jump to the Main Menu.

Christopher Smith

CBN International

[Christopher Smith]

This is certainly difficult to diagnose online! However, I would encourage you to Build your disc in DVDSP (using the Build command), which creates an AUDIO_TS folder and a VIDEO_TS folder on your hard drive. Then use Toast or other software to burn those two folders onto your DVD. That way, you are using each program for its strengths—DVDSP for authoring, and Toast for burning. By splitting the task into stages, you make troubleshooting easier.

Within Toast, you can know if you’re using discs which your drive can actually burn. This really isn’t much of an issue anymore, but it is something to “check off”.

Also, by building before you burn, you can emulate the disc by using Apple’s DVD Player to Open the VIDEO_TS folder, which allows you to play the disc as if it was burned. Once you’ve tested it thoroughly and know you want to burn it, you then use Toast to do so.

Another possibility is that your drive is no longer working properly. I’ve had a drive stop being able to burn; I believe it could still play discs, but I can’t recall. You can run Hardware Test, perhaps (depends on model) ( https://support.apple.com/kb/HT1509?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US ) or you can take your MacBook Pro to the shop and have them take a look at the drive.

Christopher Smith

CBN International

[Christopher Smith]

You should always encode before placing assets into any authoring software. That way, you have control over the bit rate (amount of compression), number of passes, etc.

A second benefit is that when you import m2v and ac3 files instead of mov files, your authoring software can give you a better idea of how large the disc will be.

Christopher Smith

CBN International