Compressor & DVDSP Question
 

If I use compressor for my sequence in FCP and then import it into DVDSP... do I need to recompress all over again...? Or is it fine?

I'm just wondering if there's an important step I'm missing in DVDSP. I did a quick 5 minute project and it looked fine (fine to me, anyways).

If you already exported your timeline & used Compressor to create your DVD (mpeg-2) files, then all you need to do is import those files into your DVDSP Project timeline. No further compression is necessary.

If you hadn't already created an Mpeg-2 DVD file, DVDSP would have prompted you to do so.

You the man Scott!
Thanks!

Here's another question...

When I export in FCP to Compressor, there is a slew of options to pick from.
I want to export the video and audio together (I think).
What's the best selection for this?

Right now I'm picking the best encoding for DV, 90 minutes at 4:3. And this compressor thing is blowing my mind.

I'm not stupid... just REALLY SLOW.

Would it better (or worse) to just export as a QT movie and then let DVDSP do its thing? It seems that may be easier. For me, anyways....

Hi Colby.

In Compressor, just select the .m2v (for video) file and ONE of your two options for the sound file, either AIFF or Dolby .ac3 file. The AIFF is the full sized file while the Dolby .ac3 is compressed (meaning a much smaller file size) but still sounds great. I normally choose Dolby .ac3 myself.

So if you choose .m2v and .ac3, then submit your batch and import the resultant files into DVD SP you'll get a good result.

Using Compressor gives you a lot more control over the quality of your footage in the final DVD, but your idea of exporting the Quicktime and then letting DVD SP compress it should be fine.

David gave you a good answer. I would add that for the best possible quality, you probably want to go through compressor, i.e. create your MPEG video and your audio in separate files. And yes, AC3 is the standard choice for audio delivery on video DVDs.

One reason why you might not like doing it this way is the long time it takes compressor to create the MPEG file, since during this time Final Cut Pro cannot be used for anything else - it is busy handing off frame after frame to compressor. You can work around this by exporting a QuickTime file from Final Cut and then, in a second step, running compressor "by hand", still exploiting the many encoding options that it offers. However, you'll then be encoding your video twice, so unless your export from Final Cut is with a lossless codec, the resulting quality will probably be a tad bit lower than what you can get by using compressor straight out of Final Cut.

Another reason to export m2v files with compressor is that you can then import them as assets into multiple DVDSP projects without having to MPEG-encode them again and again. Depending on what you put on your DVDs, this may or may not be relevant for you.

- Martin

UNLESS you uncheck "make movie self contained" when exporting the QT file from Final Cut, then you can make a QT Reference file which outputs VERY fast (it uses all the video renders you've already done and contains only pointers to those files).

Thank you guys for the responses!
I love this site!

Exactly, I always un-check "make movie self contained" and export the audio & video as seperate files. The reason I do seperate files is so I can use Soundtrack Pro to gain maximize, without the video mucking up the process.

I import the audio & video files seperately into Compressor also.