iMovieHD or FCP? for DVD
 

Well, I am back fellas, and this time I am really needing some guidance.
I dumped a bunch of wedding footage(720 30p) into iMovie HD to quickly create a " highlights " piece. One thing led to another, and you guessed it; my project is complete. I imported it into iMovie as HD ( should have switched to DV on cam, I suppose) Now the bride is screaming at me to give her a DVD that will work in her player. I need best quality possible. I do have FCP Studio available. I need simple, step by steps. HELP!!!
" WILL WORK FOR ADVICE "
(from a cross-poster)

iMovie Projects can get imported directly into Final Cut Pro. I suggest doing this and then dumping the timeline to a SD Timeline with Motion Rendering to fastest since it was originally in HDV. Then export to Compressor with the Best Quality Settings, 16x9.

I believe you can also export a Quicktime Reference from iMovie and just drop it into Compressor which will work if that option is available. The motion may not be correct and I am not sure if you can change that setting in Compressor. You can try it anyway, it may look fine.

Hayes,

You have two options available.

1. Simple: From iMovie HD, go to the share menu and select iDVD. Select a wedding theme and there you go - done.

2. Better: For 2-pass encoding and more control of DVD authoring in DVD Studio Pro, select Share->Quicktime and export your iMovie sequence at "Full Quality." Then close iMovie, drop the exported file into Compressor and use one of the 2-pass Mpeg2 presets. Then import your m2v and AC3 (or AIF) into DVD Studio Pro and author away!

Thanks guys-
Tim- I have exported the m2v file to DVDStudio, but no audio files show up. What am I doing wrong? Is there a step by step "dummies" procedure I need to follow?

An m2v doesn't have audio - it is only video. The audio file can be either AIF format or AC3 (dolby digital) format. Compressor 2 can create either for you from the original file.
In DVDSP, just drop the AC3 or AIF onto the "track" you made with the m2v and everything should work fine.
DVDSP does have a steep learning curve if you haven't done DVD authoring before. However, there are many templates that you can start with just like in iDVD. DVDSP can also open iDVD projects (if you selected the iDVD template option when you installed FCStudio.)

Thanks Tim for the advice, and for a great site.