Kevin Wayne Jones
March 28th, 2008, 12:24 PM
I wrote to Doug Jenson at Vortex Media,
author of the "Mastering The Sony PMW-EX1" DVD set about HD to SD conversion.
Here was his response...
Hi Kevin,
I'm glad that you liked the DVD.
Just about everything I produce gets output to DVD. I don't output to tape at all, and haven't for about three years, so I don't know if I can give you all the answers. However, here's my workflow for DVD. Maybe you can adapt it for DVCAM where necessary:
I believe it is very important to edit with Sequence settings that are as close as you can come to matching your final output. In other words, if you aren't going to author a Blu-ray disk or some other HD final product -- then don't edit in HD!! Edit in SD. Choose sequence settings that match your final output -- not the source footage. That's how I edited "Mastering the EX1" and it looks fine, right?
Here's how I edited "Mastering the EX1" and all of my other DVDs with FCP 6.
1) I shoot most of my footage 1080 30P HQ --- but I don't think that makes much difference in the final output.
2) I open a new Sequence in FCP and use the "DV NTSC 48Khz Anamorphic" preset . . . or non-anamorphic if the output will be a 4x3 DVD . . . yes, I still do those too.
3) I change the Field Dominance to "NONE"
4) I edit the entire program within that Sequence.
5) When I'm done editing, I then Export a QuickTime movie of the Sequence. I choose "Current Settings" and I do NOT choose to "Make Movie Self-Contained".
6) I then take that QuickTime movie and bring it into Compressor.
7) I then choose the Compressor preset for DVD Best Quality and modify a few of the settings (such as bitrate), but nothing major.
8) After that file is finished rendering, I bring it into DVD Studio Pro and author the DVD normally.
This is exactly how my EX1 DVD was produced, and it's the workflow I've been using with XDCAM HD for almost two years. VERY SIMPLE. No extra software, no extra rendering, nothing special at all. I do everyting EXACTLY how I demonstrate in the EX1 DVD and it looked good, right?
I hope that helps.
Doug
www.VortexMedia.com
author of the "Mastering The Sony PMW-EX1" DVD set about HD to SD conversion.
Here was his response...
Hi Kevin,
I'm glad that you liked the DVD.
Just about everything I produce gets output to DVD. I don't output to tape at all, and haven't for about three years, so I don't know if I can give you all the answers. However, here's my workflow for DVD. Maybe you can adapt it for DVCAM where necessary:
I believe it is very important to edit with Sequence settings that are as close as you can come to matching your final output. In other words, if you aren't going to author a Blu-ray disk or some other HD final product -- then don't edit in HD!! Edit in SD. Choose sequence settings that match your final output -- not the source footage. That's how I edited "Mastering the EX1" and it looks fine, right?
Here's how I edited "Mastering the EX1" and all of my other DVDs with FCP 6.
1) I shoot most of my footage 1080 30P HQ --- but I don't think that makes much difference in the final output.
2) I open a new Sequence in FCP and use the "DV NTSC 48Khz Anamorphic" preset . . . or non-anamorphic if the output will be a 4x3 DVD . . . yes, I still do those too.
3) I change the Field Dominance to "NONE"
4) I edit the entire program within that Sequence.
5) When I'm done editing, I then Export a QuickTime movie of the Sequence. I choose "Current Settings" and I do NOT choose to "Make Movie Self-Contained".
6) I then take that QuickTime movie and bring it into Compressor.
7) I then choose the Compressor preset for DVD Best Quality and modify a few of the settings (such as bitrate), but nothing major.
8) After that file is finished rendering, I bring it into DVD Studio Pro and author the DVD normally.
This is exactly how my EX1 DVD was produced, and it's the workflow I've been using with XDCAM HD for almost two years. VERY SIMPLE. No extra software, no extra rendering, nothing special at all. I do everyting EXACTLY how I demonstrate in the EX1 DVD and it looked good, right?
I hope that helps.
Doug
www.VortexMedia.com