Converting HDV project to SD DVD

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Level 1

18 points

Converting HDV project to SD DVD

I have a strange little video verité project.

A legal aide gave a presentation to a local citizens' group. The aide spoke on legal matters for less than 27 minutes. I shot the presentation using an HDV camcorder (tape-based), in standard HDV format.

I just used Final Cut Pro 7 to Log and Capture the presentation footage: a single, continuous, 27 minute clip. The footage was brought in as HDV.

There are two projects that the group asked me to prepare:

Project #1: edit, format and burn the presentation onto a standard-definition DVD. (Using Final Cut Studio, including FCP 7, Compressor, and DVD Studio Pro 4.) DVD is to be self-playing and containing only the presentation.

Project #2: edit, format and upload the presentation to YouTube, preferably at the best possible quality. This would be made available to the public at a later date.

My question:

I already imported this footage in HDV format. How do a transcode this same presentation for each project (at separate times) so that the HDV footage will be formatted for each use? In other words, how do I transcode to "step down" footage for Project 1's DVD, and then later on, take the footage out of Final Cut again for YouTube?

Would it be easier to re-Log-and-Capture the footage for the DVD? The camcorder has an on-board feature to allow footage to be played or captured as DV. I've done it that way before, but this project seems different because I'm preparing the video for two very different kinds of media.

iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5), late-2012 Core i5, 8GB RAM, 1 TB HD

Posted on Aug 4, 2015 1:59 PM

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Answer 1

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Aug 4, 2015 2:52 PM in response to Walt_Atwood

The general workflow would be export a self contained Quick Time movie with Current Settings. Import the QT file into Compressor, Create a batch and apply two settings: 1) the 90 minute Best Quality DVD preset; 2) the You Tube Sharing preset.

For the DVD job make sure the Resize Filter in Frame Controls is set to Best. When encoding is complete, bring the output (audio and video file) into DVD SP. (If you need help with menus, etc, I suggest you post in the Final Cut Studio forum, where you can get some great help.

You don't need to do anything special with the YT encode. I'd probably select a 720 resolution; Compressor will automatically de-interlace.

Now should you transcode before you do all this? Some people who know lots about this topic would say yes, and others – just as knowledgable – would say no. As for me, when I worked regularly in FCP 6 and 7, I usually worked with Pro Res. I also preferred working with non-anomorphic pixels. So in your position, I might have either first converted before or at import. Or perhaps run the exported QT HDV movie through Compressor to give me a 1080 Pro Res version as my new source file.

HTH

Russ

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Answer 2

Walt_Atwood Author

Level 1

18 points

Aug 5, 2015 9:29 PM in response to Russ H

The DVD project was a success.

I'll have to get word back from the group if they want the video posted to YouTube.

Funny this is, the last couple of times I used Compressor to prepare a video clip for upload to YouTube, I used the YouTube codec in Compressor and YouTube didn't like it. I had to fiddle around with it to get it to work. YouTube doesn't make it easy to configure a custom codec spec, either.

Does anyone know what the specs are?

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Answer 3

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Aug 6, 2015 2:37 PM in response to Walt_Atwood

You Tube complains because fast start isn't enabled with the YT preset. Possibly also because of the high data rate. Regardless, in my view, the video sharing presets produce good results, YT then recompresses it to a much lower data rate. I believe that may be around 2-3 Mbps for a 720p video, but don't know exactly.

Glad to hear the DVD worked out well.

Russ

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