Burning Large Video Files

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Level 1

4 points

Burning Large Video Files

I apologize ahead of time for not knowing how to do this, but I do not do this for a living and am in no means a professional.

I shot and did some basic edits from a fairly recent hd sony handycam video camera.

I exported the video out of Final Cut with "export as quicktime movie" as a Apple Prores 444 to preserve quality.

One 40 minute file comes out to be about 70gb, however there are other smaller clips I want to add to the dvd menu in Studio Pro.

I have never used Compressor before because I have never had files this large, yet DVD Studio Pro has always managed to do the compressing even with larger files when I click burn.

This time it did not, I assume because of the file size.

I put the large file in Compressor but I don't really know where to go from there. I put settings at apple prores 444 and compressed, but the file came out the exact same size.

Then I tried a downgraded m-peg and got the file to be only a couple of gigabytes, however it took up just as much room in Studio when I used it.

I am just looking for any advice on what settings I need to make the files in compressor to keep the good quality HD footage, but be able to burn on a disc from Studio.

Or why Studio reacts the same whether it's a larger file vs. smaller. Does it only depend on the length?

Many thanks for any advice.or help.

Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Dec 19, 2012 4:02 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

SoCal

Level 4

1,255 points

Dec 19, 2012 4:36 PM in response to eseverts

ProRes4X4 is completely unnecessary for what you are working with. What is the codec you are editing in? In the Browser (the window in the upper left of FCP with your clips and sequences) scroll to the right and tell me what it says for Frame Rate, Compressor and Frame Size. This is your editing codec. I hope it's not 4X4.

The purpose of using Compressor is to create files for different forms of delivery. Exporting your 4X4 file as 4X4 will result in a file the same size as you haven't done any compression. DVD's use .m2v (mpeg 2) files for video and .AC3 for audio. In compressor apply the presets for DVD Best Quality with the appropriate amount of time (60 minutes, 90 or 120). These are the files you bring into DVDSP to build a DVD.

In DVDSP make sure you are burning SD DVD's not HD DVD's. HD DVD's have gone the way of the dodo bird. You can find your DVD settings under preferences. Note that you have to make this choice BEFORE you import any media into DVDSP. You can't just switch a DVD from HD to SD. It doesn't work that way.

I hoe this helps to get your DVD burned.

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Answer 2

eseverts Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 19, 2012 5:55 PM in response to SoCal

In my sequence the settings are:

Frame Rate (Vid Rate?): 29.97 fps

Compressor: Apple Intermediate Codec

Frame Size:1920x1080

I export Quicktime Movie: Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) 1920x1080 30p

Okay I will try DVD Best Quality and hope it doesn't take away from the quality too much.

Yes DVDSP is set to sd dvd.

Thanks very much.

+this helped me

See what happens after compression.

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Answer 3

Shane Ross

Level 8

43,110 points

Dec 19, 2012 6:03 PM in response to eseverts

DVD Studio Pro doesn't burn HD discs that are in any way useful. What I mean by that is that it can burn HD DVDs...but that format lost to BluRay. No one has HD DVD player. It will work on Macs, and on XBox 360 consoles, and that's it. If you want an HD disc, you need to master to BluRay. And for that you need a BluRay burner and Adobe Encore or Toast Titanium.

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Answer 4

eseverts Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 19, 2012 6:19 PM in response to Shane Ross

Yes I understand that HD DVDs did not go anywhere and I'm not looking to put my video on one, I don't have one for that matter. However, I also don't have bluray so a SD DVD is the only option for me. I'm just trying to get my HD VIDEO footage to burn a master DVD with the best possible quality.

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Answer 5

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Dec 19, 2012 6:36 PM in response to eseverts

IMO, you should just export Quick Time using current settings.Going from AIC to ProRes HQ won't get you improved quality and will get you much bigger file sizes.

Compressor will encode your file as an MPEG2 (and a separate audio stream). The MPEG file will be SD anamorphic, so it will look right @ 16:9.

AIC isn't state of the art, but it's a very decent editing codec. With only 40 minutes of length your final product should be fine.

Russ

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Answer 6

eseverts Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 19, 2012 7:09 PM in response to Russ H

Ya when I've exported with current settings in the past sometimes DVDSP doesn't recognize the file.

The only reason I exported to ProRes from AIC was because there wasn't an AIC 1080p option only 1080i and since I shot it in 1920x1080 I prefer to keep it at that.

Ya I noticed that those settings seperate the video and audio. Why does it do that?

I also noticed there is a "send to" option below export that you can send to compressor. Does that make any difference?

Ya there are only 40 minutes of the main video, but the other videos combine probably another 40 minutes.

Thanks for helping me understand AIC

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Answer 7

SoCal

Level 4

1,255 points

Dec 19, 2012 7:49 PM in response to eseverts

DVDSP may not recognize the editing codec but when you create the mpeg2 files it will accept those as that is what DVD's use. When you import other files not DVD ready, DVDSP will compress them into mpeg2. That's one of he reasons it is best to use Compressor. Another is that you have more options in Compressor vs DVDSP.

Video and audio is separated for all DVD's then it is muxed together when you build the DVD. Why? That I don't know maybe someone else will answer that for you.

You can choose the "send to" option for Compressor. I like to export out the file before Compressor so I have a "Master File" of the project. It won't make a difference in the quality it's just a different workflow.

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Answer 8

Jim Cookman

Level 7

23,435 points

Dec 20, 2012 8:33 AM in response to eseverts

Just to confuse you further, and contrary to my usual best advice, I've found that you often get better mpegs when starting with a 1280x720 file, rather than a 1920x1080. My GUESS is that it's easier for compressor to make a good looking sd mpeg from a smaller sizws hd file.

(my usual best advice is to not step on a file until it's absolutely necessary.)

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Answer 9

eseverts Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 20, 2012 10:35 AM in response to Jim Cookman

Ya that seems weird because you would think normally if you had a nice camera you would want to shoot in 1920x1080, but really I don't know.

I would prefer not to step on a file either. How do you know when you will need to compress something? For me, I just try to burn it in studio and if it doesn't allow it then I know my files are probably too large. Is there a specific limit for Studio or is it the file size or length?

So if you shoot a fairly good quality shot and want to make a DVD, obviously not doing an HD DVD, your two options are primarily burn a sd dvd or a bluray dvd. Is there a lot of lost quality if I burn a SD DVD after making all the effort to shoot decent HD files?

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Answer 10

eseverts Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 20, 2012 6:13 PM in response to SoCal

Okay so I tried doing the DVD: Best Quality 120 minutes in compressor with my main video but was not very pleased with the quality. It took about 12 hours or so to do so I know it was working. I have a bunch of videos that combine to be almost 120 minutes that is why I set it to that in compressor.

But just in doing the main video, approximately a 40 minute video of pretty nice looking AIC 1920x1080 full hd video does not look good after doing this setting in compressor.

There has to be another way. I would think Hollywood films projects contain a lot larger files (granted I don't expect it to be that quality), but somehow they can compress it onto a DVD without a huge quality loss like mine just experienced.

I am burning some DVDs for some families for Christmas that's the only reason I am concerned, as it is a gift they would enjoy. I find it odd so far that the video I post on YouTube can look better than the master DVD they would receive if I used this file from compressor.

If I do DVD Best Quality 60 minutes and just scrap some of the other footage would that keep more of the quality?

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Answer 11

eseverts Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 20, 2012 6:59 PM in response to eseverts

Here's another interesting thing I noticed. When I import my 60gb 40min video file straight into DVDSP the bar goes to 1.7gb because it's showing the space it will use on the DVD after it compresses it. The file I compressed in compressor was the same size.

But why then, when I import a 7 minute clip that is not even 1gb does it move the bar to 2.7gb? That shows the compressed size will be the same as the original? It's just confusing to me because it's not consistent.

All I care about is that the main 40 min video looks good on the DVD. The other videos are really for fun like outtakes, other events, etc. so I wish it would heavily compress those and leave as much alone with the main video as possible

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Answer 12

eseverts Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 21, 2012 10:39 PM in response to eseverts

I still have not found the answer to this problem so I will keep attemping to get a good quality video burned. I did however find that the DVDSP's compression looks better than compressor's. I found that if I trimmed about 20 minutes of some of the extra footage I could get all my videos to burn in DVDSP without putting them through compressor and they looked better this way, but still not very great. During graphics with a black background there are a lot of glitches.

I guess I will just keep trial and erroring different solutions. I would still love any further advice.

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Answer 13

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Dec 22, 2012 5:50 AM in response to eseverts

eseverts wrote:

Is there a specific limit for Studio or is it the file size or length?

In creating a DVD, the length of the original source movie – not its file size – will determine whether it will fit on the disk at an acceptable quality level. Here's an example.

Pro Res LT is about 3 times as efficient as (or more compressed than) Pro Res 4444. Depending on frame size and frame rate, a 40 minute PR 4444 file might easily be around 90 GB and a Pro Res LT version, "only" 30 GB.

You might then feed Compressor (or some other compression software) each of these files, apply the same DVD settings to each and it would output two far smaller MPEG files of identical size. Why identical? Because they were the same length going into the encoding process.

As to your most recent results, it's hard to say why DVDSP would produce better quality than Compressor. Compressor provides controls for quality and to minimize artifacts that are not available in DVDSP. So Compressor should produce either similar or better results than DVDSP. At a bit rate of about 5 Mbps you should be able to fit over 90 minutes of video on a single DVD, including a reasonable allowance for menus.

Also – turning on Frame Controls and setting the Resize Filter to Best (or at least Better) can help minimize the artifacts that are often introduced from the down convert.

Russ

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