[Sue Black]

Michael,

Thank you for your response. I guess that I really am confused. So you are using toast to burn Blue Ray DVDs after you work with and compress your 1080I video and take it to DVD Studio Pro to turn it into a DVD?

I keep all of my files on a lacie harddrive I don’t know if its a BD Burner as you referred to.

All I have is a IMac with a superdrive and my software is the educational version of FCP 7 that comes with compressor and DVD Studio Pro. I quess I was confused someone on COW wrote an article on burning blue ray using the superdrive of the IMac but he said that the blueray would not play on the IMAC again and that it would only play on blueray players.

Can I just plug my lacie harddrive into a TV and play my 1080i HD movie that way and forget about DVDs?

What is the very best codec that I can use to get High quality DVD outputs?

Sue

[Sue Black]

Michael you state that your scratch file has 1080i and 720p video so this means that you are using this video to burn DVDs?

I have burned 1080i HDV and pro ress 422 video to a standard DVD the quality seems superior to the regular standard 720 DVD BUT my video comes out with lines that look as if the video was taken in extreme heat with heat waves rising from the video.

Have you had this problem and if so how have you fixed it????

Aso I read your article on burning blue ray to a DVD5 but you state that once it is done the DVD5 can only be played on a blue ray player on not on my Mac SuperDrive and/or on anyone elses computer or a regular DVD player — is this correct did I understand what you were saying correctly?

I have been determined to get a better DVD output because my original video is so good 1080i but until I read your article I did not realize that my Mac SuperDrive could produce a blue ray DVD.

All in my compressor which came in my FCP 7 there is a setting for H.264 10.3Mbps will that work on a standard DVD and will it give me better quality?

I would appreciate any suggestions which you could give me.

[Sue Black]

Yes, I will definitely try your steps. Would I accomplish the same thing (get the video into SD 720 x480 16×9) for my DVD burning by compressing it to SD converted 720×480 16×9 anamorphic QT, in my Compressor to BEGIN with?
That way when I input the video into DVDStudio Pro to burn a DVD it will “aready” be in SD 720×480 16×9 anamorphic QT format and I will not be burning a DVDPROHD 1080i movie but the SD 720×480. I thought of that but someone told me that you have to input the “best” quality possible video to get the best DVD output. Thats why I have been so intent on compressing and putting my video into DVDStudio Pro in the format it was filmed on HD1080i 16×9.

I’ve tried some SD coversions and played them back on my computer but they weren’t that great and I thought that inputting a “semi-good” version into DVDStudio Pro to burn would only give me an even worst output.

[Sue Black]

Thank you, your absolutely right my PRORES422 version has more heat like waves in it than my DVDPRO 1060I. Theres something I wanted to ask you since you are such an expert and tutorials don’t talk about the type of DVD used for burning. I have been using Ritek Ridata White Inkjet Hub Printable 8X DVD-R because I am printing labels on my DVDs with an Epson printer. Is the speed (8X) the correct speed to use? I saw where they have other DVD speeds i.e. 16x. Also, is DVD-R the correct DVD or should I be using DVD+R? Someone at the store told me that DVD-R is the industry standard which can be played by most computers and DVD players is that correct?

I have learned a lot just by going back and reading your posts to other people on other topics, thank you.

[Sue Black]

Thank you Slowe, Brame, Pautsch, for responding to my questions, to be honest I was confused way before I turned to this site for help. I have been using different compression settings to see what I get. I used HDV 1080i, DVDPROHD1080i, ProRes422, Mpeg2 as my input videos and I burned a DVD with each of them. DVDPROHD1080i, ProRes422 inputed into my DVD Studio Pro Software gives me a good quality DVD output. I am assuming from what all of you say that my “output” format is a SD Mpeg2? The input ProRes422 is 20G, the input DVDPROHD 1080i is about 17G. They both fit/burn on my DVD which is a DVD-R. My DVD says its hold 4.7G. My original video was filmed with a Sony HD Camera in 1080i which I put in my Final Cut Pro Academic Version Software to edit and produce a 14 minutes video. As part of my software I have DVDStudio Pro which is the only software I have to burn DVDs with. Compression is the software that comes with my FCP software. I have tested the DVDs on various computers i.e. Mac, Dell, Hewlett Packard at our local Best Buy Store. The problem I am having is that the video output on my DVD looks really good and sharp (almost like HD) BUT on certain frames it has these lines in it which looks something like the heat steaming up in those Western Movies you see. From what everyone has said I am thinking that the input video resolution is just too much for the DVD Mpeg2 SD output to handle.

QUESTION: Is that the problem?

I don’t know there are no real settings on my DVD Studio Pro other than 3/4 Ratio 16/9 Ratio, first play, etc. my software says it can produce a HD DVD but my computer can not. I am on the latest version of IMAC.

I would love to be able to burn blueray but I am a graduate student and I just barely purchased my FCP software. I cannot afford the equipment needed to do so. Not to many people even have blueray players here as of yet.

Final point I played both my DVDs on Sony HD1080i TV’s with a Sony DVD player at Best Buy Store. I have also studied the on-line tutorial on Lyndia and some of the other sites which have DVD tutorials for FCP but it seems that they are “basis” tutorials I have figured out pretty much what they are saying on my own. Does anyone know of more advanced DVD tutorials which I can study?
Thank you all again.

[Sue Black]

I’m starting to get a grasp of how it is done, thanks to your response and the threads, you can tell I’m a “learner”. I’ve burned DVDs with the video input in DVDPRO HD 1080i for school projects which I had to hand them out, they look alright and function okay in “my” computer but I am thinking that probably no one else can see them in their equipment but they probably have not said anything to me about it. Thank you I will input in Mpeg 2 like you told me.

[Sue Black]

Thank you for your help. By saying to encode the video to the highest bit rate possible for the amount of material that will fit on a disc do you mean that the DVDPRO HD 1080i which I have it encoded in will be okay and will play alright? I was reading the threads and someone said to use compressor and compress to ProResHd which I found in my compressor settings but I wasn’t sure what it was/is and if it will give me a better quality output that the 1080i which I already have. My video is just 15 minutes long. Thank you again, I really appreciate your help.