DVD Sudio Pro for HDV Projects Question

[irishpants]

If I want to print an HDV project to a standard definition DVD using Apple's Compressor and DVD Studio Pro, which settings do I use? I've used the H.264 Setting, 1080i Standard Compression, and I forget the other one. None of them will play in a regular DVD player. Can someone help me out?

 

[esp4ever]

I have a Canon HV20 which records to HDV 1080i/60. I tried to export and burn a 1080i file onto a DVD and it wasn't compatible with my Standard Definition DVD player. In compressor 3 the best method for exporting for SD DVD is the "DVD Best Quality" setting which has the MPEG2 6.2Mbps 2-pass for the video file and the Dolby Digital Professional 2.0 for the audio. If you're working with surround there's a Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround option as well.

Just import those exports into DVD Studio Pro and burn it to a Standard Def. DVD from there. Even though its not in HD; the quality is much better than a regular video camera.

 

[element80]

Just be prepared for it to take forever. I had to burn a 1 hour HDV wedding onto a DVD, and finally walked away fro it for the weekend after 8 hours of converting. At that point, it still hadn't finished processing the frames.

 

[MarkG]

True: I find my system takes about two hours just to downconvert an hour of HDV footage to DVCPRO50 so I can feed that into the DVD software.

Note that standard DVDs in standard DVD players will only play SDTV MPEG-2 files, so you'll have to downconvert to 720x480 (NTSC) or 720x576 (PAL) to produce a file which is playable.

 

[esp4ever]

In DVD Studio Pro I've also found that it's a lot faster if you build your project first and then format it. It's a lot faster than doing both at the same time when you click burn. The process that takes the longest is the build, the format just burns the info onto the DVD.

 

[BenB]

Let Compressor do the down conversion from HD to SD when it makes your MPEG-2 files for SD DVD authoring. You'll use the "Send To" function directly from your FCP Timeline window to Compressor, and select an SD DVD format that matches your project most closesly, then tweak for optimum image quality/file size balance. You'll get the best image quality. Compressor does take forever to convert HDV to any non-HDV format, do to the Long GOP format of HDV. It just takes more time to deal with.

Dropping an HD Sequence into an SD Sequence in FCP will work, but you won't get the best image quality.

All covered in my DVDSP tutorial.

Also, there's a book that's only 20-something dollars (USD) that is invaluable. "Compressor Quick Reference Guide" It has the best information in it, and will save you tons of experimenting time, and give you a clear understanding of the whole process in very little time.