Best quality end result to DVD
 

I have been going crazy for almost 2 months now trying to edit footage from my 5D Mark 11 and have spent hundreds of hours on the web and plenty of $ upgrading my computer to get around iMovie crashing with the footage from the 5D 11. Today I made some leeway in an Apple forum thread (Apple - Support - Discussions - iMovie 09 crashing using Canon EOS 5D ...). However after doing all of this I have also established that iDVD (which is required to burn a DVD from iMovie projects) has an output resolution of 480i! This maybe the reason that I cannot get that lovely crisp clarity when making a DVD that all of the sample 5D videos on the web are displaying.

Now while I am primarily a photo journalist, and love the still shots from the camera, a major objective has been to create promotional DVDs with the 5D Mark 11 video footage. I want to be able to supply these in the full resolution and HD of the original 5D files. It appears that there is no way that an iLife workflow can offer that. I am now looking at what application can offer me a final output quality to match the Canon 5D Mark11.

I did try some 5D footage on Final Cut Express at my local Mac shop (oh yes, I am using an iMac 2.16GHz INtel Core 2 Duo with 4GB RAM) and it crashed FCE. I understand Final Cut Pro can handle the footage. Can FCP burn direct to DVD or do I need another application for that?

It is very frustrating, I have awesome HD footage, but cannot use it for editing and output to DVD. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Scott Amon

I'm able to edit the 5d2 .mov files in iMovie (08 & 09) as well as Final cut express without it crashing
I am not capturing using imovie ow Quicktime though

Have you updated to the newest Quicktime?

Thanks Tomaso,

I am running Quicktime 7.6 which I think is the latest update.

What machine and RAM are you running and are you burning final footage to DVD?

Sorry, not sure what you mean by "I am not capturing using imovie ow Quicktime though"

Regards,

Scott

I'm running Final Cut Pro 5.0.4 on a Dual 2.7ghz G5 with 4.5 GB of Ram.

I can't edit those clips straight from the camera

I first convert all of the 5D's clips to DVCPROHD 720p60 before I edit in Final Cut.
Then use DVD studio pro to make final DVD.

-Bill

You can use MPEG Streamclip ( free ) to batch process the 5d2 files as pretty much anything you'd like.... for imovie/FCE use apple intermediate codec and your good to go.

If you jump up to FCP you should export for MPG Streamclip as prores 422 for great results.

I just tried a 5D Mark II clip into Final Cut Express and it seemed to work fine. Note that this was version 4.0.1 (latest) and latest version of QuickTime (I understand that Apple did some fixes to H.264 playback and support in both FCE and QuickTime, so if the test machine didn't have the latest updates of both, that might explain the problem.) And I'm running this on a 1.8 GHz Mac mini!!

At what point did FCE crash? During import, while trying to play the clips, or while doing editing?


Final Cut Pro does not burn DVDs. It depends upon you having either DVD Studio Pro or iDVD. BUT, both of those programs only support standard def DVDs.

Strictly speaking, DVDs only support Standard Definition video. You have to use Bluray (or HD-DVD) to get HD on a disc. You can (and this is kind of cheating) burn HD video to a DVD disc that will play back on a Bluray player, but those discs won't play on a standard DVD player. Roxio's program Toast will let you either burn HD to a DVD or Bluray disc (latter requires a Bluray burner); but again, you need a Bluray player to play either of them.

Toast 10 is about $80. If you want to output to Bluray, you need to buy a plugin that they sell for an extra $20.



The suggestion to convert the clips to Apple's Intermediate Codec might be a good one, but just to make editing faster in FCE. At the moment, when you drag a raw clip into the timeline, FCE demands that you rerender the clip before it will play it. This can take time and gets tedious while editing. Converting to AIC should eliminate that......BUT, that's something to make the editing process faster and not something you have to do to get results with FCE.

Thanks folks.

Michael, FCE crashed while moving through the timeline (footage), but you are most likely correct in that the other machines I tried on would not have had the latest quicktime as that was a month or so ago.

I'm keeping away from BluRay because of the complexity and cost, and I am more than happy with the the resolution and definition of standard DVDs. It's just trying to get my own footage to the quality of professionally made DVDs - and the 5D mark 11 has the quality to start with.

My edited footage has quite fine definition once edited and played in iDVD, but tends to lose some quality once burned to DVD. I'd love to retain that crispness that the 5D shoots.

Regards,

Scott

PS. Christopher - can't seem to find proress 422 in MPEG Streamclip - under what option is it located?

PS. Christopher - can't seem to find proress 422 in MPEG Streamclip - under what option is it located?[/QUOTE]

oops... with FCE and imovie, you probably don't have the option of prores.... you'll need to upgrade to FCP or export an apple intermediate. ( which is what imovie and FCE work natively anyways.) then you won't have to keep rendering every time you move a layer around over another layer.