Poor MPEG2

[Tariq Peter]

Hi All,

I have a 18min video which is 1920x1080 progressive 25p which looks stunning. I now want to supply the video on a DVD so I have used Compressor. I was cringing when I watching the video back on just how bad it was. The settings I used to created the MPEG2 were DVD-Best Quality Settings 90 minutes, Mpeg2 6.2Mpbs 2 pass.

I used DVDSP to author my DVD but the video is horrible. Any ideas on what I am doing wrong?

[Daniel Epstein]

Try using Compressor to make the DVD movie file and avoid DVDSP conversion which is often not as good. You may want to keep the audio from the first render and just drop the video from The Compressor output onto it in DVDSP.

[Mike Marriage]

Tariq, in Compressor's Inspector window, check the "Frame Controls" tab. What is Resize Filter set to? I would use Better as a minimum.

Also, in the Encoder tab, then Video Format sub tab is Field Dominance set to Progressive?

I've had issues with Compressor confusing interlace/progressive material.

What I would also recommend is outputting to Prores HQ 1080p25 first and then dropping that into Compressor. Although a 2 step process, it does seem to be faster (maybe someone else here who has tested it can comment?) and also creates an HD master for archive.

[Les Wilson]

Lacking a description of what the "bad" video looks like, this may or may not be the issue but if you do a search on DVinfo in the Final Cut Studio area for "DVD workflow", you'll find various alternative workflows. THe most common problem in producing SD output from HD content is aliasing. Going from 1920x1080 to 1280x720 for HD web works well but going to 854x480 SD DVD can have problems.

To my memory, most successful workflows use FCP to resize the video not compressor. If you've already exported to a 1920x1080 Quicktime file (no conversion):
1) import that HD file into FCP
2) Create an SD sequence
3) Drop the HD file onto the SD sequence
4) Render and Export an SD master
5) Compress using Compressor
6) Master the disc using DVDSP

Do make sure your field dominance is correct in the SD Sequence
I suggest doing a test of a small clip that currently shows the problem to make sure this solves the problem you are seeing.

[William Hohauser]

Also remember that you are going to SD which ideally should be looked at on an SD monitor to truly know if the down conversion worked. Looking at the result on an HD monitor means that you are relying on whatever up conversion technology is being used. Sometimes a cheap DVD player does a better job than your computer or an HD monitor.

[Arnie Schlissel]

If your video is under 90 minutes, you will gain nothing by using 2 pass encoding. Use 1 pass CBR, set it to 7 Mbps. Make sure you encode the audio to ac3. In the frames tab I set the downconvert to "Best" & deinterlace to "Fast". Make sure the output fields are lower (even) field first.