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How can I make the highest quality DVD from Final Cut??

Hello all,


I am making a professional DVD that will have about five 15 minute videos. When I export them as MOVs DVD Studio Pro says it can not take them. I am then forced to go to Compressor and make "Best Quality" DVDs which makes the files MPEG-2s which seem to me like they lower the quality of the video quite a bit. These videos are all shot in HD 1920 x 1080 so this might be why it looks so bad after it compresses, but still, is there any way or any DVD authoring program besides iDVD that will accept higher quality codecs like MOV? I just want these DVDs to look as good as they can! Thanks!!

Posted on Nov 18, 2011 1:52 PM

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17 replies

Nov 18, 2011 2:23 PM in response to Da Volcano

Have you watched the disc on a TV yet? And you are going from HD (I suspect HDV) to a standard definition DVD. So yes there is quality loss. Unless you plan on making a Blu-Ray which you can't do in DVDSP then you have to make an SD-DVD. And that has to be mpeg-2. I've used the presets in compressor many times and while yes it's not HD it still looks quite good.

Nov 18, 2011 2:39 PM in response to Da Volcano

>go to Compressor and make "Best Quality" DVDs which makes the files MPEG-2s which seem to me like they lower the quality of the video quite a bit.


There are two things happening during the compression process that will, indeed, affect the quality.


#1 DVD is standard definition only. So your high resolution HD video will be reduced to 720x480 pixels (standard def NTSC). If you want to deliver HD content on optical disc, as ToddNashville already stated, you'll need to create a Blu-ray disc ... and they will not play in DVD players. You can also make an HD DVD, but that format was abandoned a few years ago and hardly anyone owns one of the few HD DVD players that were ever manufactured. HD DVDs will not play in DVD players, but they will play in most later model Macs.


#2 In order for DVDs to be compatible with DVD players, the video must be compressed to MPEG-2. MPEG-2 is a long GOP (Group of Pictures) format that throws away a lot of information in order to reduce the file size and data rate. Only one in every fifteen frames contains the full video information. The remain 14 frames of each GOP only contain information that changed from the full frame. It's actually quite a bit more complicated than that, but that's a very basic and limited description.


>is there any way or any DVD authoring program besides iDVD that will accept higher quality codecs like MOV?


MOV isn't a codec; it's a audio/video container file type. A QuickTime .MOV file could be made from any number of codecs and quality levels.


The best way to maintain quality is to start with high quality to begin with; good lighting, good lens and do not record or edit in a highly compressed format like H.264 or AVCHD and especially HDV. You cannot/should not expect "Hollywood" quality when you start with a consumer, prosumer or low-end professional camera.


-DH

Nov 18, 2011 2:59 PM in response to David Harbsmeier

It's fascinating that there are so many posts on these boards about DVD authoring.


Despite Apple's strategy to relegate the DVD and Blu-Ray formats to obsolescence, there is clearly a very strong interest in their customers' outputting their movies to disks. Not that I expect that – even if they were to notice – it would have any impact on that strategy.


Russ

Nov 18, 2011 3:52 PM in response to Da Volcano

From FCP I do Share>DVD>Create DVD>either show menus or play movie. I do not know how you would do 5 seperate movies on one DVD but this is the best way I know to make a SD DVD from an HD file. To me this is OK for approvals or review but not distribution.


If your intent is to distribute DVD's you need to find a better method. It does not make much sense to produce in HD and distribute crap. Almost all of my HD movies are sent to my end users as large WMV's produced using Flip4Mac Pro which look pretty **** good. I would use H.264 but it still seems a little klugy with Windoze.

Nov 18, 2011 5:55 PM in response to Robert Tompkins

Thanks everyone for the help! We shot this in a professional studio using very nice HD cameras ( I do not know which kind) so it should look really good, and it really does in FCP. Compressing it down to DVD just takes a heavy toll.


For myself and some clients I just make DVDs using iDVD which takes the full HD MOV and then compresses it it on its on and i feel like it ends up looking better than when I take the file to Compressor and make MPEG 2's and then put them to DVD SP.


Basically, the video was professionaly lit and shot and now is all edited on FCP and needs to be put on a standard DVD. Is it just going to be expected to be quite a bit less quality because it is putting a full HD file and compressing it for DVD? Or are there maybe alternate programs I can use?


Thanks a lot for the helpful responses!

Nov 19, 2011 5:46 AM in response to Da Volcano

I think David gave a great explanation of what happens when you compress HD to standard DVD. If you and your client are happy with the results then great.


I think this is a common problem now in production is how to keep "HD" from production to delivery. You can spend the money on a good Blu-ray burner but can you you guarantee that your end user has a Blu-ray and an HDTV? Most people don't have Blu-ray on their computers. There is some pretty great content distributed over the internet. Maybe that is the way to go.


Try my method of burning and see if it works for you.

Nov 19, 2011 7:11 PM in response to Brad Wright2

Very interesting article. I have the same problem. I'm using a professional camera to shoot high quality videos, and I have to explain to my customers why the quality is average because of the DVD. They have a hard time understanding this because they relate to the hollywood DVDs they rent at the store. So if I undersrtand correctly, it useless to shoot at 1920 X 1080. My camera only shoots in HD so it's best to shoot at 1280 X 720. One more thing, how do you get the movie to play in 16 X 9 like the rented DVDs since the DVD format is 4 X 3? Should I export my MOV in NTSC 720 X 480 16:9 ? And then compress it using Compressor Best Quality DVD?


Thanks

Nov 20, 2011 4:59 AM in response to Brad Wright2

I gave it a try. I took my footage in 1280 X 720 at 30p. Imported it into FCP as native (my Canon XF300 creates MXF files). I then exported the sequence in NTSC 720 X 480 16:9. I did not check the "Preserve aspect ratio" and "Deinterlace source video" checkboxes. Compression type was H.264 and frame rate 29.97. I then imported the resulting MOV file into compressor. Compressed the file using the "DVD best quality 90 min." setting. Imported the resulting video and audio files into DVD Studio Pro. Burned a DVD and watched it on a Panasonic 42" HD television. I would say the image quality has improved compared to my previous technique but I still see a little bit of the jagged lines. I would love to get rid of those.


2 questions: Should I shoot at 30p? Is this the best frame rate for what I'm doing? Should I use DVD Studio Pro to compress, instead of Compressor?

Nov 20, 2011 7:04 AM in response to Puceron

I'm not surprised that you are seeing problems.


Your camera shoots in a variation of MPEG 2.

FCP reconformed that footage to make it editable.

You exported as H.264.

Compressor made that file into MPEG 2 so that it could be multiplexed into the VOB files to make your DVD.


What I would have done:


Ingest the .mxf files and transcode directly to ProRes LT.

Edit and master in ProRes LT.

Transcode for DVD in Compressor.

Nov 20, 2011 8:30 AM in response to Puceron

H.264 should never be used as an intermediate video codec. You want to only used Intra-Frame codecs, such as ProRes, 8 bit uncompressed, or 10 bit uncompressed. It's very hard on your system to try to convert H.264 into any other form of compression, especially DVD. There should be a warning that prompts you in Final Cut Pro whenever you try to export to H.264 that says, "You are about to lose massive amounts of video quality, do you want to continue?"

Nov 20, 2011 1:28 PM in response to Brad Wright2

Wow, thanks a lot everyone for the great posts!! I am going to look over these again with some colleagues to see if one of these methods makes it better. It really is a shame that this is so difficult. We would put them on Blu Rays but this will be distributed to a lot of people so DVD will have to do.


So basically, until everyone starts using Blu Ray, there is almost no point in using a full HD camera if it is just going to be put on DVD? Is this problem present in other editing systems such as CS5?

How can I make the highest quality DVD from Final Cut??

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