From cam to DVD step by step.
 

Hi, I'm obvioulsy a beginner and I'm trying to figure out the best (qualitywise) way of going from a dvtape to FCP and back either to a DVD or back to a DV tape..

Is there a quality difference between iDVD, Studio Pro and Toast? (Image, I mean.)

From cam to comp. goes through firewire, no quality loss there.. but then when I'm done in FCP. What do I do next?

Thanks!

Please?

I know you know. ;-)

Some people report pixelization problems on transitions with iDVD3 (but not 2). Studio Pro has a better encoder I believe so you won't run into that problem. I'm not sure be Pro will also be better if it allows AC3 encoding and iDVD doesn't.

Seriously though I wouldn't worry too much unless you run into that pixelization problem. Content is still king. Something that's technically slightly inferior won't be noticeable unless your content is bad and people are losing attention (in which case technical aspects can't rescue your video). Think of all the bad movies you've seen with multimillion dollar budgets (Godzilla, Final Fantasy, etc.). On the flipside it's bad for technical flaws to distract the audience, and you might need to get Studio Pro if iDVD is too buggy to work.

Thanks Glenn!

My first step is to export it from FCP before i can import it in to another program. There are severaloptions.. :-(.

Which one do I chose for best image quality?

Thanks.

Self-contained FCP movie should do. You can do non self-contained to save time, but that's just a pointer file to all your media (it tells other program where your real media actually is). The self-contained FCP movie contains a mix-downed version of the audio and may or may not cause problems.

i highly recommend you purchase Inside DVD Studio Pro 2. it is a six hour tutorial on creating DVDs. It is $100 and totally worth it. It explains everything you will ever need to know about creating a DVD for beginners and pros. you can order it from www.digitalmediatraining.com

Alfred if you are going back to tape then no compression is needed so to get it out of FCP you just select "print to video" and you can record the video back thru firewire into your camera again, Full quality! If you want to put it on DVD you (in FCP) select export using Compressor (if you have FCP 4) and choose the appropriate preset to make an MPEG2 file, which is what you need to make a DVD in DVDSP. You can use export as quicktime movie too and select the MPEG2 option but compressor, although slower converter, i beleive can create a better quality MPEG2 file.

Or, you can export out of FCP as self contained FCP movie if you are only gonna use iDVD. Is this what you were asking?

Yep,
That's exactly what I was asking! I don't have FCP4, though I guess I'll have to upgrade..

You say if I go back to tape there's no quality loss at all?
That's good to know.

Do you know if it matters which software i use to record the DVD? (iDVD, Toast or Studio pro?)

Thank you.

You need a DVD authoring program such as iDVD or DVDSP to put it all together and make menus for the person watching the DVD to DVD player to interact with. Toast can only burn copies of a DVD after it has been created in an authoring package. But iDVD and DVDSP can burn DVDs too so Toast is not essential. DVDSP is a great program with a huge options to make a really Pro looking DVD and the finished video footage will look better too. iDVD is great a free package but doesn't have the creative scope that DVDSP has so you soon outgrow it and wisah all your DVDs were made using DVDSP.