Can any one advise, or point me to some threads to make high quality DVD?
I'm coming out of FCP, using DVDsp.

My work flow is this:

Export a reference movie, or a self contained movie out of timeline

Import that file into DVDsp

I don't use compressor, I have it, though. Is that the answer? Thanks

I have spent weeks testing various HD to SD compression scenarios and I'd have to conclude that Compressor does come up short with EX 1080 video. Now that we have the BBC report there is independent confirmation that pretty much any SD downconversion encoder is going to have trouble with extra resolution in the EX's 1080 video. I have not tried the BBC report recommendation to use 720p for SD conversion because all of my projects must also end up on Blu-ray.

That being said, I have discovered that Episode Pro 5.x produces better results than Compressor. Episode Pro provides SD output with no line tweeter and occasionally a small amount of chroma aliasing in the detailed scenes where the encoder is taxed beyond its capabilities. Your mileage may vary, cheers!

Has anyone tried various detail settings in Compressor?

It's found under Frame Controls.

I turned Details Level up to 20 and the final result is considerably cleaner and sharper. I also did some adjusting in the anti-aliasing, but it doesn't seem to have as a dramatic effect as Details Level.

The downside is that it takes a LOT longer to process. What might take a few hours can take more than a day. With an 8-core Intel Mac, a 43-minute program takes about five hours to compress.

I haven't tried Episode yet so I can't speak to that.

But give us more details. What format is your project? Progressive or Interlaced? I've had problems going from Progressive to Interlaced. But going to a DVD you want to make sure you're NOT changing from one to the other. In other words, if your project is Progressive make your DVD progressive as well. Personally I think DVD's look better in Progressive anyway.

But yeah, we've discussed this to death in the other thread. Post your question there and you'll probably get lots of responses from the people still subscribed to it (like me).

Shoot @ 720p and set compressor to 8meg one pass. This should result in a good looking SD mpeg for SD DVD.

I just used Compressor for a 5 minute film that needed to be on DVD that was going to be presented in a theater, so I needed the quality to be as good as SD on DVD could be. I think 7 or 8 mbits/sec is good, but no more as DVD players can't handle more than that.

I gave up on the details and anti-alias setting because I just didn't have the time to wait for the results (the progress bar was not moving at all...)

I found the images to be ok, there was occasionally more judder (I shot and edited in 1080 30P) and scenes with a lot of horizontal detail and there was a tilt-up movement showed distracting artifacting. The only way I could get rid of it for those scenes was to go back to my FCP sequence and 'blur' those sections to remove some of the detail. Kind of annoying to have to reduce the resolution and clarity just to make it work for DVD, but these things happen and sometimes are probably unavoidable no matter the compressor used (no proof of that though). I'll have to go back and see if Episode Pro does a better job with similar material.

although i use compressor, you might like to try bitvice, a highly respected mpeg2 encoding software from innobits.

i come off media 100 hd and yes, downconverting from hd to sd via compressor does take some time, even from my 8 core macpro, so i usually leave the encoding to the overnight task if i have a few or a long one or 2.

I just used Compressor for a 5 minute film that needed to be on DVD that was going to be presented in a theater, so I needed the quality to be as good as SD on DVD could be. I think 7 or 8 mbits/sec is good, but no more as DVD players can't handle more than that.

I gave up on the details and anti-alias setting because I just didn't have the time to wait for the results (the progress bar was not moving at all...)

I found the images to be ok, there was occasionally more judder (I shot and edited in 1080 30P) and scenes with a lot of horizontal detail and there was a tilt-up movement showed distracting artifacting. The only way I could get rid of it for those scenes was to go back to my FCP sequence and 'blur' those sections to remove some of the detail. Kind of annoying to have to reduce the resolution and clarity just to make it work for DVD, but these things happen and sometimes are probably unavoidable no matter the compressor used (no proof of that though). I'll have to go back and see if Episode Pro does a better job with similar material.

Sounds to me like you were trying to go from 1080 P (progressive) to 720i (interlaced). You need to edit the default settings in Compressor so it creates a progressive MPEG-2 file. That will make a BIG difference. Hope that makes sense.

Is there a page anywhere on the web that takes the same footage and runs it through a variety of compressors? Episode is fairly pricey (IIRC) but I'd love to know what these various programs are capable of especially when going from HD to SD.

I wish.

The closest thing I found was this:

OneRiver Media // Codec Resource Site // v5 (http://codecs.onerivermedia.com/)

But it hasn't been updated in quite a while. Great effort though.

I tested Noah Kadner´s workflow today, and I think I will use it in the future:

(Choose ProRes 422 HQ as render codec)
Export using QuickTime Conversion with ProREs 422 HQ to the frame size you want: I choosed DV-PAL 16:9.
Use Compressor to create the MPEG-2 file with DVD Best Quality for 90 min.
Excellent results in a simple and fast workflow.

I have never understood why you would convert to ProRes and then compress again to mpeg. I you want a quicktime file I understand but going the other route involves longer rendering times for the same output file?
Why not set up a SD Seq in FCP in the SD delivery format? then send to compressor.

I'm no expert and i'm open to all things.
Nick

Moderator note: Please do not copy and paste complete work by someone else, somewhere else -- especially without acknowledging the author! Just put a link in. Text removed from this post and replaced with a link to original work:

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/hdv_timeline_to_sd_dvd.html

Why not set up a SD Seq in FCP in the SD delivery format? then send to compressor.

Because it is better ...
These codecs are compressed, ProRes less so. It is obviously less destroying. You may also use uncompressed, but that results in huge files, probably with minor improvements i quality.

Some of you who answered suggested methods I'm just not set up to do, including different software, and change my shooting settings, 720 vs 1080. And some things I just didn't understand at all. I stumbled on this 7 page PDF someone posted, forgive me I forgot who. He suggested making an SD sequence, and dragging my HD sequence into the SD. But first, I followed his instructions to the letter, rendered a piece. It looked absolutly awful.

So, my apologies to those who are fed up with this topic. Wading through pages of posts of those who have their own methods is something I'm dreading, not to mention the hundreds of potential wasted hours with trial and error.

So pleeeeese, who knows a work flow that works. Working with FCP, and DVDsp, shooting 1080i.
Below is what I had downloaded, which for me gave terrible results. Once rendered, the resolution
was very poor. I didn't think going ahead making a DVD would be any better.

Now that we have the BBC report there is independent confirmation that pretty much any SD downconversion encoder is going to have trouble with extra resolution in the EX's 1080 video. !

Rubbish. How do you think Hollywood gets those 4k or 2k scans down to SD size for DVD release. My downcoverts from HD to SD are absolutely stunning from the EX1.

This is what I do for all footage 720p, 1080i, 1080p
Edit in FCP
Export to compressor.
Select best 90mins template and also an audio template.
In the inspector tab for video select: Quality and change this to Mode: one pass, average bit rate 8Mbps. Also change Motion Estimation to Best.
Frame controls: make sure it's turned off.

This is about as good as I can get with Compressor.

Here are the settings I use in Compressor. The results are very good. Since you have that software, I strongly recommend you make good use of it as it has a lot more flexibility than just using DVDSP.

You can also "batch process" in Compressor, having it do several different tasks, unattended, overnight.

I'm shooting 1080p30 so that might make a difference. Export Apple ProRes HQ, self-containted. 1920 x 1080 p30.

Drag that file into Compressor --

File Format: MPEG-2
Stream Usage: SD DVD
Video Format: NTSC, frame rate 29.97, aspect ratio 16:9
Quality: Mode - Two-pass VBR.

NOTE: Two-pass Variable Bitrate Compression provides the best quality output and is the most efficient. One-pass VBR isn't quite as good. Two-pass VBR is also slower since it has to go through the entire file to determine compression rates throughout, then go back to apply those rates accordingly. Average bit rate 6.2 Mbps. Maximum bit rate 7.7 Mbps. Motion estimation, best.

Frame Controls: On. Resize filter, better. Output fields, same as source (I'm using progressive so this doesn't really matter). Deinterlace, fast (no deinterlacing taking place in progressive so this doesn't matter). Adaptive details: on.

This is another reason why I shoot progressive frame HD. Eliminates the problems caused by interlaced video. Interlaced video was invented to solve problems caused by the slower scanning rates of television picture tubes in the 1940s. We don't have that problem in the 21st Century so why make things more complicated?

Anti-alias, off. Details level: 20.

Rate conversion: fast (no rate conversion so it doesn't matter). My own personal opinion again: I produce for TV and 30 fps is the native frame rate. So no 24 fps for me since, again, I don't want to make things more complicated.

You can try setting the "resize filter" to "best".

Be aware that setting the "details level" to anywhere above zero will increase the compression time considerably. You might want to do your compression in segments instead of the entire program at once. Our show consists of eight segments and each one is done on its own. In case Compressor should crash overnight at least not all is lost.

IMHO, if you're shooting HD, you should edit in HD. Conversion to SD should be last. That way your program can be re-purposed to HD anytime in the future. Some make the mistake of editing in SD then changing their minds later, and having to re-scale other elements such as graphics and titles. It's almost like doing the whole job twice, and that doesn't make sense. It also makes things more complicated.

Because you're working with interlaced, you might want to do some systematic tests to see what works best. That's how I set my details level at 20. I batch-processed several settings with short test files in Compressor and looked at each one. You can use these settings as a starting point, then change one variable and see what happens. Because Compressor can process several things at a time, you can set up a variety of tests, let them all run, and compare the results afterward.

Just be sure to work methodically and take careful notes.

Good luck!

If you're shooting/posting interlaced, this "should be" real easy. Have you tried this simple work flow?

1) Edit project in FCP.
2) With the timeline active, choose File>Export>Using Compressor
3) This will launch Compressor and your sequence will be automatically added to the Job window (note: you won't be able to use FCP until you're done working in Compressor)
4) In the Compressor Settings window go to Apple>DVD and choose one the DVD settings that best matches your project. The "Best Quality 90 minutes" setting will give you the least amount of compression of the 10 DVD settings.

The one thing you might play with is in the Inspector>Frame Controls. Your interlaced HD footage is Upper Field dominate. DV footage can be either progressive or interlaced, but if it's interlaced, it is Lower Field dominate. The default of this setting (greyed out, so you can't select it without turing Frame Controls on) is "Same as source", but I'm not sure if that means it will make a DVD that is Upper Field dominate (bad idea, and could be the ghosting your seeing). I'm guessing it makes the correct conversion and spits out a lower field dominate MPEG-2 file. Anyway....

5) In Compressor, click the Submit button and wait a while (could be a few hours depending on how long your project is)
6) Launch DVD Studio Pro and import the finished mv2 (I think that's the extension) file.
7) Create your DVD as normal (double check you have your preference settings set correctly for a standard def dvd)

Easy! :)

EDIT: Looks like a bunch of other people beat me to it. So now you have a number of "solutions" to try. Good luck! :)

I'm shooting 1080p30 so that might make a difference. Export Apple ProRes HQ, self-containted. 1920 x 1080 p30.

Good luck!

Dean, I saw you saying you where shooting 30p? Why? I never got good results from 30p (ugly artifacts with straight lines, buildings, fences etc) then I read that DVD doesn't even natively support 30p. 24p and 60i are supported, anything else and the HDTV and DVD player struggles to figure out what it will come up with, often not very good. Have you tried shooting and editing 24p (1080p/720p) and then converting to DVD?

Well doing some experiments tonight while I have time with some short vids with different anti-aliasing in FCP compressor and trying to get more quality out of my footage.

Dean, I saw you saying you where shooting 30p? Why? I never got good results from 30p (ugly artifacts with straight lines, buildings, fences etc) then I read that DVD doesn't even natively support 30p. 24p and 60i are supported, anything else and the HDTV and DVD player struggles to figure out what it will come up with, often not very good. Have you tried shooting and editing 24p (1080p/720p) and then converting to DVD?

Alex...

I've had very good results in 1080p30. It's the maximum that can be captured in terms of image and temporal resolution with a Sony EX1. Your results could be due to a different camera, different software to process the images, settings in the encoding process. But I definitely don't believe it's because of shooting in 30p.

I blew up images to as large as 16x20 for our show's display during a festival here, and the pictures looked very good. People were amazed to hear that they were frames from the show, and not photographs.

30 is the frame rate for TV. It doesn't make any sense for me to shoot at 24, then complicate matters by having to convert to 30 for TV, especially since everything I do is intended for TV. Going from 24 to 30 has the potential to create additional problems in a process that's already complex.

24 fps is what film producers came up with a long time ago to portray a good sense of motion with a minimum amount of film. With today's technology, that cost is not nearly as daunting an issue as it is with film. In this case I believe that more is better. And by shooting in 30 fps I avoid any frame rate issues. In that case I believe simpler is better.

1080 gets maximum detail. It's also why I wanted a square-pixel medium that captured and recorded to full 1920x1080, rather than one that sampled down to 1440x1080. When shooting green screen, more pixels equals more detail, better edges and better realism. I shoot the rest of my material to match. It also allows me to pull stills for publicity material.

I'm using Compressor to convert Apple ProRes 422 HQ to encode MPEG-2 for DVD, and into other formats. I can pass along my settings if that helps at all. One of the parameters has the potential to slow down the encoding process a lot. It takes nearly five hours to encode 45 minutes of material because I turned Compressor's "detail" option "on."

Edit: I posted my settings previously. That info is still valid.

If you have access to a PC (or bootcamp, or maybe even Parallels), there is a workflow that produces hollywood studio quality results using completely free tools. You can export a ProRes file out of FCP, load it onto Windows, and run it through the downscale process.

Dean, do you have the link to your previous posting with all your settings?
dave

I use compressor and get good results this way (which is very similar to other posts so there seems to be a reasonable consensus) - btw I shoot with an XH-A1 so work with HDV so not as high end as the EX boys, so the fine detail of some quality loss is perhaps less noticeable:

1) Edit in FCP6 in native format (HDV).

2) Export as QT movie using 'current settings' (not QT conversion). I don't convert to Prores at all as I've no idea what the point is apart from file size which isn't too bad with HDV - I'd be grateful if someone could tell me why it is worth doing otherwise.

3) Drop file into Compressor and chose DVD best quality 90 mins.

4) Chose highest 'allowable' average bit rate - 6.8 and 2-pass VBR, motion estimation, best.

5) I've tried looking at the GOP settings too as choosing IP can in theory be better for fast motion I think but never really noticed much difference.

6) Frame controls: only need to be on for me if I'm going to de-interlace (I shoot 1080x50i) in which case the chose the right output field (bottom first for SD) and best motion compensated quality. I used to de-interlace everything but a lot of the time it is not needed as DVD players do a very good job of de-interlacing on the fly for you - much better in my experience that doing it at source which always softens the image a bit no matter what method. Having said that Compressor does a pretty good job of it though it takes many, many hours and for some projects with very complex, fast motion I have found de-interlacing at source is the only way to get smooth motion - I'm looking into the possibility of marking key frames (think that's the phrase) in FCP to identify such passages which can then use a different GOP setting for that bit only to deal with it without de-interlacing but not got round to it yet.

7) Export resulting m2v file into DVD SP (I watch it in QT or VLC first to check for any problems).

8) I don't use Compressor for audio as unless file size / space on the DVD is a real issue I see no point in compressing the audio at all. Instead I export the audio only from the original QT file at full quality (48K PCM) and drop this alongside the m2v file in DVD SP.

Burn disc.

Not tried setting details level but it sounds like it might be worth a try.

Results look great.

30p is not NTSC broadcast standard nor is it standard for DVD or Blue-Ray. 60i (59.97) and 60p (59.97) is. FCP is referring to 29.94 theoretical frames made up of 60 interlaced fields a second (59.94) seperated in time by 1/60th of a second.

Shooting 30p and exporting to DVD/Blu-Ray/Broadcast requires the most conversion of any format.