Getting good quality DVDs from HD material

Have you tested it by watching it on an actual DVD player hooked up to an actual TV?

Hi

There are NO HD version of iDVD at all - only SD (old TV standard)

My list on iDVD and quality.

*DVD quality*

1. iDVD 08 & 09 has three levels of qualities.
iDVD 6 has the two last ones
• Professional Quality (movies up to 120 min.) - BEST
• Best Performances (movies less than 60 min.) - High quality on final DVD
• High Quality (in iDVD08 or 09) / Best Quality (in iDVD6) (movies up to 120 min.) - slightly lower quality than above

2.Video from
• FCE/P - Export out as full quality QuickTime.mov (not selfcontaining, no QT-conversion)
• iMovie x-6 - Don't use ”Share/Export to iDVD” = destructive even to movie project and especially so
when the movie includes photos. Instead just drop or import the iMovie movie project icon (with a Star on it) into iDVD theme window.
• iMovie’08 not meant to go to iDVD. Go via Media Browser or rather use iMovie HD 6 from start.

3. I use Roxio Toast™ to make an as slow burn as possibly eg x1 (in iDVD’08 or 09 this can also be set)
This can also be done with (Apple) Disk Util tool.

4. There has to be about or more than 25Gb free space on internal (start-up) hard disk. iDVD can't
use an external one as scratch disk (if it is not start-up disc).

5. I use Verbatim ( also recommended by many - Taiyo Yuden DVDs - I can’t get hold of it to test )

6. I use DVD-R (no +R or +/-RW)

7. Keep NTSC to NTSC - or - PAL to PAL when going from iMovie to iDVD

8. Don’t burn more than three DVD at a time - but let the laser cool off for a while befor next batch.

iDVD quality also depends on.

• HOW much free space is there on Your internal (start-up) hard disk. Go for approx 25Gb.
less than 5Gb and Your result will most probably not play.

• What kind of movie project You drop into it. MPEG4 seems to be a bad choice.
other strange formats are .avi, .wmv, .flash etc. Convert to streamingDV first
Also audio formats matters. I use only .aiff or from miniDV tape Camera 16-bit
strange formats often problematic are .avi, .wmv, audio from iTunes, .mp3 etc
Convert to .aiff first and use this in movie project

• What kind of standard - NTSC movie and NTSC DVD or PAL to PAL - no mix.
(If You need to change to do a NTSC DVD from PAL material let JES Deinterlacer3.2.2 do the conversion)
(Dropping a PAL movie into a NTSC iDVD project
(US) NTSC DVDs most often are playable in EU
(EU) PAL DVDs most often needs to be converted to play in US
UNLESS. They are plabacked by a Mac - then You need not to care

• What kind of DVDs You are using. I use Verbatim DVD-R (this brand AND no +R or +/-RW)

• How You encode and burn it. Two settings prior iDVD’08 or 09
Pro Quality (only in iDVD 08 & 09)
Best / High Quality (not always - most often not)
Best / High Performances (most often my choise before Pro Quality)

1. go to iDVD pref. menu and select tab far right and set burn speed to x1 (less errors = plays better) - only in iDVD 08 & 09
(x4 by some and may be even better)
2. Project info. Select Professional Encoding - only in iDVD 08 & 09.

Region codes.
iDVD - only burn Region = 0 - meaning - DVDs are playable everywhere

DVD Studio pro can set Region codes.
1 = US
2 = EU

*unclemano wrote*

What it turned out to be was the "quality" settings in iDVD. The total clip time was NOT over 2 hours or 4.7GB, yet iDVD created massive visual artifacts on the "professional quality" setting.

I switched the settings to "high quality" which solved the problem. According iDVD help, "high quality" determines the best bit rate for the clips you have.

I have NEVER seen iDVD do this before, especially when I was under the 2 hour and 4.7GB limits.

For anyone else, there seem to be 2 places in iDVD to set quality settings, the first is under "preferences" and the second under "project info." They do NOT seem to be linked (i.e. if you change one, the other is NOT changed). take care, Mario

Yours Bengt W

hello all, I am very interested in this topic - and almost posted one before seeing this.

I am in the same boat. I take HD video, use FCE, and see the resulting disappointing output. I now have changed my settings to be "professional quality" and am about to set the burn speed but I am confused over the previous reply. You said:

"1. go to iDVD pref. menu and select tab far right and set burn speed to x1 (less errors = plays better) - only in iDVD 08 & 09
(x4 by some and may be even better)"

Clarify? do you mean "x4" is better than x1 ?

Last question: can iDVD Pro create HD output?

Thank you!

No, it cannot. iDVD and DVD studio pro make.....DVDs! So it obviously won't be HD.

Thanks Jeremy, let's discuss this further.

By definition, a DVD is not HD unless it's burned onto a blu ray disk. (pls correct me if I am wrong). I know there are no blu ray burners supported on Mac as we speak. I heard that many Pros use the Adobe suite of products on Mac and create output of a disk image aka the TS_VIDEO folder. Then they take the TS_VIDEO folder onto a PC and using a blu ray burner, create an HD disk.

When I asked if iDVD Pro created HD output, I meant the output of TS_VIDEO... knowing I would take it to another PC to burn using a blu ray burner. Does that help the discussion?

Obviously the above is a huge pain and I don't want to do it. Any other suggestions on attaining true HD disks for our customers? thanks all!

No, DVDs are standard definition. There is no such thing as a DVD that is high definition. There were HD DVDs, but that is a confusing but specific term. It lost the format war to Blu-ray. Blu-ray discs are not DVDs; there is no such thing as a "Blu-ray DVD". There are Blu-ray discs, which you need a BD burner for, and appropriate software.

That said, you can burn short videos in Blu-ray format onto physical DVDs. These are called AVCHD discs. Toast can make them, and you do not need a Blu-ray burner to make them.

Final Cut Pro, Toast, and Adobe Encore are the only options to make Blu-ray discs. FCP and Toast can also make AVCHD discs, if you have short videos and no Blu-ray burner.

If you get Toast, and a $200 burner, you can start making BDs. You do not need a PC to do that, although there are other software options on the PC side.

Also, there is no "iDVD Pro." DVD Studio Pro is a component of Final Cut Studio. But it only makes DVDs.

Jeremy, thanks for this education. I have had my iMac now for about 4 months and the learning goes on. I am going to research Toast and the AVCHD format further to get a handle on all this.

2 more questions: 1. you said "you can burn short videos in Blu-ray format onto physical DVD". define "short".

2. you said "get Toast and a $200 burner" .. do you have a burner model in mind? I did alot of poking around for blu ray burners but they were not supported on mac. did I miss something?

thanks!!

In the same way that most hard drives are platform-independent, so are burners. I bought an internal LG burner, and have a cheap USB-SATA adapter (essentially a drive enclosure without the metal box around it). I would be surprised if any burner did not work. For how many years now have we been using products or services that are "not supported" for Macintosh? Even my online banking doesn't "support" my computer.

External burners are just internal burners in an enclosure. It may be worth your budget to roll your own.

An AVCHD disc might use a bitrate of, say, 10mbps to encode video to H.264 (one of the three formats allowed on a Blu-ry disc). This would be about twice the rate of a typical DVD, so you would get about half the time. In other words, you could get at most an hour onto a DVD. But this is pushing it a bit; my BDs use a bitrate of around 12mbps, which would allow about 45 minutes on a single-layer DVD. If you have a dual-layer DVD burner and discs, you could double that. One of the nice things about Toast is that it is very flexible in terms of formats and discs. But its menus are really ugly. Also, AVCHD discs don't support menus. And don't forget that you still need a BD player to play these discs.

I eventually settled on a BD burner and BD discs, as opposed to all sorts of compromises.

Hi

With Roxio Toast™ 10 Pro including Blue-Ray Component one can burn
• DVDs formatted as Blue-Ray - I get about 20 - 30 minutes onto a SL DVD
• Should be able to burn BR-disks With external BR-burner
(see specification at Roxio homepage - Have no BR-burner = Can' test)

Yours Bengt W

that's good info. thanks!

Shimmer? I've not seen that. I originally asked if you had watched it on a real TV. I've seen motion that could be called shimmer when watching a DVD on a computer monitor; that is not a good test.

Use professional quality encoding, best motion estimation when available, and your DVDs will look great.

If in doubt, prepare a one-minute iDVD project showing your problems and find a way of serving it. I'll download it and check it out.

Jeremy

I would say that you have hit the nail on the head. HDTVs, that is flat panel TVs, are progressive and not designed to show interlaced video as their primary function. They include deinterlacer circuitry, and that is a major thing consumers should look at when shopping. Since much TV seen today is (arguably) still analog and interlaced, progressive displays are somewhat premature. So if a manufacturer puts in a poor deinterlacer, they will see that LCD TVs are really good at showing bad video.

Also, viewing distance is shorter with HD material. If you are looking at DVDs (SD obviously) then you must sit further back than when watching your HD satellite broadcast. Then the flaws won't be so apparent. Anything looks bad if you sit close enough.

Have a look at this:
http://carltonbale.com/home-theater/home-theater-calculator

That spreadsheet shows you how the viewing distance changes with resolution and screen size. Since you made a comparison with an old-fashioned TV (for your old-fashioned DVDs) I bet they are fine, but something in your viewing setup is not optimized for interlaced SD.

Jeremy

Jeremy,

Read some of your posts, You seem like the right person to ask help...

Got a similiar prob and need some help burning DVD thru StudioPro...I gave up on iDVD since it has been so buggy.

I shot an event in HDV 1080i on Sony Z5U, downconvert video captured (letterbox rather than squeeze) to FCP, FCP sequence settings are DV NTSC 48khz Anamorphic, edit then export QT reference movie, and import into StudioPro, design menus etc. and Build & Burn...

Well I get a DVD that I've played back in several DVD players, and TV configurations... The DVD is formatted in 16:9 letterbox from preferences, but plays back incorrect aspect ratio(video is short & fat on 16:9 screen, and letterbox on 4:3 screen, but it is also is short and fat looking on 4:3) I selected other viewing options on all the TVs, and the only option that displays the correct video aspect ratio is 4:3, but it makes an edge crop and all the footage is shot, edited, exported, and burned as 16:9 ratio. Don't quite understand what's happening???/

I'm trying to offer the widescreen DVDs, but am not getting the results...
any clue what process I'm doing wrong????

I should rename myself "4:3 Old School"