[Paul Crowe]

Hi Greg

I do this because toast runs a verification that I was once told was a good thing. What you do is drag the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders from your DVDSP build into toast in data mode with DVD-ROM (UDF) selected in the advanced menu. Obviously check you’ve got DVD selected and the disc named and then burn.

Cheers
Tankboy

[Paul Crowe]

thanks for that kieran

I checked all the stuff you mentioned and that was all in order. So as part of my hit’n’miss testing strategy I tried encoding it using single pass CBR. I had previously been using VBR and hey presto it fixed it.

Cheers for all your help.

Tankboy

[Paul Crowe]

firstly, thank you all for your responses. it has been very very helpful.

Answers to your questions. the project was aquired on a G5 quad OSX 10.4.10 M100V11.5 in the media100HD codec. I’m not sure why I think it was an oversight because it was shot sd and will be finished sd. The clips (four short films) were originally exported in QT DV Codec and have been tested in various other codecs with the same washed out problem occuring in the final DVD. I’m doing the DVD work on a Powerbook using Producer and DVDSPro 4

Okay so, I have tried the 0-255 option out of m100 but SP says it can’t recognised the files and so won’t import them.

So i did the gamma tweak in compressor as Kieran suggested and yeehaa! it corrected the washed out look nicely.

Now, I must clarify here I don’t ususally do this stuff. I usually edit and have a guy that does all my dvd creation for me. but he’s unavailable so I’m having a shot at doing it myself. So I was using the DVDStudio inbuilt encoder until I tried compressor for those tweaks.

But now I’m wondering if it is possible DVDSP could be re-encoding with inbuilt encoder during the finishing somehow because now although the pictures aren’t washed out they’re not as sharp and a bit jaggy. The encode settings i used in compressor are pretty much the same as the original settings used (in the inbuilt DVDSP encoder) except with the gamma tweaks.

So i guess my question this time is, does the inbuilt encoder in studio pro recognised pre-encoded files and turn itself off. Or could it be re-encoding the files (is that even possible)? As you can see I’m a bit of a dweeb at this end of things. I’ve read the manual and can’t seem to find anything in relation to this.

I guess the change in the look of the files to softer/jaggy could be due to something else entirely (although as I say the encode settings are pretty much the same) so I’ll keep testing the compressor settings. In the mean tme any more thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

sorry for the long winded post.

Cheer again
Tankboy.

[Paul Crowe]

Hi Guys. Unfortunately it’s not a spare track. But I think I’ll try RED as you suggested.

FYI- using an adjustment layer with a mask and blur filter in AE is a pretty efficient way of achieving this as well. It’s looks like I’m going to have ALOT of this stuff coming up and I’m trying to find the quickest program at my disposal for doing it.

Cheers
tankboy

[Paul Crowe]

Hey Keiran. Thanks for responding.

My system looks something like this…

G5 Quad, Dual boot FCP/M100. Loads of RAM
OSX 10.4.10
M100 HDe v11.5
Boris FX v8

Is this enough info?

Cheers
Tankboy

[Paul Crowe]

Actually. What I tried when I couldn’t get it working was import a movie into another track under the track (with the shape & Blur as per insturctions) to see if that might work. This is when I get the black shape on top of the movie file images – no alpha or opacity blur. This is a bit weird because the shape I created in photo shop is white!

When I do it without the track with the movie file in it. With just a V1 track I get a black screen.

Like I say it all looks prefect in the Boris pre-view.

I’ll paste the original instructions below. Just in case Kieran is off-line or there’s anyone else that can help – any insight would be greatly appreciate.

Cheers
Tankboy.

Hi Tankboy,

I’ve just made the effect in FX to see if there was a difference, but (in 6.1) I got it to work OK.

In this case I did the following,

1. Made a new composition above my clip in G1 (or whatever)
2. Edit the composition (FX launches)
3. You should have one video layer set as V1. Create another by “add 3D plane” or command-K. Make sure this is also set to V1
4. Apply basic blur to the topmost layer.

You should now have a completely blurry layer.

5. Create a new layer. Place it at the top
6. Set it to Still Image File and import your shape (from photoshop or whatever)

If you’ve managed to import it with its alpha channel in place you should now have the shape sitting over the blurry video. If not, try using the “Make Alpha Key” filter from the filter menu. This may well have the effect of making your shape invisible but its mask visible. If that’s the case don’t worry – we can fix that later

7. Drag this new shape track to the MASK track of the blurry video. (drag it onto the word mask – you’ll need to have the drop-down of the track enabled)

Now you should have clean video and blurred video in the shape of your imported shape. If you have it reversed to the way you wanted it (see above) then click the “inverst mask track” button (the one that looks like a red dot in a box next to the “eye” symbol of the mask track). This will reverse the shape.

Let me know if that cures the problem,

K

[Paul Crowe]

Sorry for the delayed reply Kieran. thanks for that info. I haven’t had a chance to try this, but a soon as I do I’ll let you know how I got on.

thanks again. it’s really appreciated.
Tankboy

[Paul Crowe]

I’m with nick. If the company is paying for it get one of dem new mac oct machines and load both. Put a bunch of RAM in it whist you’re at it.

I’m running FCP and M100 on a quad and it works really well. Although I hardly ever use FCP for editing I just use some of there other stuff in the studio pro pack. But you’ll miss hassel free, bullet proof editing on media100 if you don’t have it.

Check out the FCP message boards if you want to see what you’d be left with. All sorts of problems.

Cheers
tankboy

[Paul Crowe]

might be stating the obvious here… but also be aware of the settings for ‘program”frame’ and ‘range’ in the export box.

Program exports the whole program, the frame a frame and you’ll need to set your in and out range points using F1 & F2 (using function key also on a lappy) to export a specific part of your program.

[Paul Crowe]

Hi Kieran,

this was a very timely post for me because I happen to be doing abit of this for the first time myself.

Thanks for your instructions. Evreything works really well. Except I think there must be a alpha chanel box I forgot to tick or something because the blurred area is black and doesn’t seem to carry the alpha video through it. If you know what I mean?

I tried decreasing the opacity in the FX layer but that exposes the face I’m trying to blur.
Any hints as to what I might have missed?

I’m using FX to do this. Thanks in advance for any advice you can give.

Cheers
Tankboy