Hi

Quick question - advice needed.

I have a piece of video i need to put onto DVD so the client may view of his player.

1. I am Buying an external Firewire burner.

2. Encode MPEG2 using Cleaner 5.1 and burn this to dvd using Toast 5 (Mac OS9).

The Cleaner 5.1 DVD preset is
MPEG 2 - Elementary Stream
720x576
Display Aspect 4:3
Encode: basic MPEG, 25fps, 5.7MBits/s video.
Audio: uncompressed PCM, 16bit stereo at 48khz.

The video will be anamorphic (squished) to fit the Display Aspect 4:3.

Will the Cleaner DVD Preset give me a good image?
and...
Will this play back on a consumer dvd player displayed correctly widescreen on plasma?

Thanks.

So you have 4:3 video and you want it to stay 4:3 when viewed on a 16x9 tv, Is that right?

I use DVDSP but to me those settings look ok

Nope. I have a 16:9 video.
The Cleaner 5 DVD PAL preset has only 4:3 aspect 720x576.
So i'm assuming if encode a 4:3 anamorphic PAL it'd come out 16:9 on the plasma.

DVDSP?

Regarding Toast...
Burning the Cleaner-encoded MPG with the DVD preset on toast will allow playback on Consumer players? I've only worked with the Toast VCD preset before.

Thanks...

It can handle 16:9, good encoding in my experience. And a no brainer interface. Do the tutorial and you're up and running in half an hour.

Sorry DVDSP = DVD Studio Pro

I haven't used cleaner but think if you can't get it to encode to 16x9 then don't use that preset. In Cleaner can you make your own encoding presets like you can in the "FCP" Final Cut Pro application "Compressor"?

Do you use FCP? If you did you could export out of it using quicktime conversion MPEG2 or use "Compressor"
Otherwise do a test burn and try it out on a widescreen TV

iDVD will not recognize external DVD burners. It is a licensing issue with the MPEG 2 people, not an Apple issue.

It's been a while since I used that version of Cleaner, but there is a flag that has to be set if I remember correctly.

Thanks for all the replies.

Just did a trial and it appears that i would need something other than cleaner. Cleaner just writes an mpg file which is not ready for dvd.

So the question now is iDVD or DVD Studio Pro?

Questions...

1. Yes, i read somewhere too that iDVD does not support external firewire burners. Does this mean that it will write the neccesary data files but not burn to the external drive?

I have toast for burning so if i can get the correct data files from iDVD (AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS directory with .BUP, .IFO and .VOB extensions) will that help?

2. Is 16:9 supported in iDVD? It doesn't seem to say on the apple website. Studio Pro does.

3. Is DVD Studio Pro worth the extra $400? iDVD is $49.

For this video, i want it to just play. But i see that Studio Pro has much more control and options for a full y featured dvd with menus etc.

Thanks.

Cleaner is just an encoder and can't author or burn discs. Toast can't author. DVD SP can use external and internal burners, encode, author and burn. iDVD can author, encode and burn, but only to internal Apple SuperDrives.

You used to be able to trick iDVD to create the files. It involved inserting a disc and telling iDVD to encode. Then removing the disk so it couldn't actually be burned. The necessary files remained and could be burned with Toast. There was an exact sequence to do this. Sorry I can't be of more help.