Best way to put 720/1080 24p footage to a DVD

[mrbrycel]

What is the best way to burn 720p/1080 24p footage to a DVD via iDVD or DVD studio pro? Ideally I'd like to have one DVD with both a 16:9 option and letterboxed 4:3 option, so I'm guessing I'd need to make to separate clips. I've always worked with 480i/60i, so I would always burn the clip straight to DVD. But working with DVCPRO-HD footage, what is the best way to do this and get the best results?

[KyleProhaska]

Why do you need both 16:9 and letterboxed option? Any TV will just letterbox the 16:9 content for you...and if its a 16:9 TV it'll display it as such. No need to make 2 encodes of the content.

Btw, using Compressor will give you the best results because you can control every aspect of the encoding process...or just choose a preset that best matches your content.

[KMR]

Why do you need both 16:9 and letterboxed option? Any TV will just letterbox the 16:9 content for you...and if its a 16:9 TV it'll display it as such. No need to make 2 encodes of the content.

Depending on the DVD player and/or TV, there may be a quality difference between 16:9 and letterboxed 4:3 viewed on a 4:3 set. You may get more "jaggies" and overall less clarity in the image when viewing the downconverted 16:9.

[KyleProhaska]

Seems like a lot of work for such a small percentage of possible issues. If what you said was so much of a common problem, anyone who buys widescreen DVD's of hollywood movies would have problems all the time. I think the %age of people that might experience that (being really small) wouldn't even know it if it was happening.

[mrbrycel]

So if I burn a 16:9 clip to a DVD, and play it on a 4:3 TV, it won't squeeze or crop it? I guess that makes sense now that I think about it seeing as I've watched widescreen movies on 4:3 TVs no problem before. I must have gotten confused after seeing 16:9 on DV tape on 4:3 TV, which was squeezed.

[David Jimerson]

It won't squeeze or crop the footage if it's set to display widescreen material as letterboxed.

[David Saraceno]

The best way to encode for DVD authoring is using a self contained QT export from a FCP sequence into Compressor and then using a preset to SD DVD together with AC3 audio encoding

Using iDVD makes no sense.

[mrbrycel]

So I should just export the quicktime file like I normally would (720/24p or 1080/24p), then open it in compressor, and use an SD DVD preset with AC3 audio encoding (does that automatically turn the do the pulldown to make the 24p into 60i?). Then use that new file to burn directly to DVD?

I have DVD studio pro, but have never had time to try to figure it out, so I've been stuck with iDVD. When I worked on PC, I used Adobe Encore DVD, which was really easy to pick up, and I was able to alter my menus in photoshop easily. But I can't figure DVD studio pro out. Are there any quick basic tutorials you would recommend?

[Dick Campbell]

there are several good kenstone tutorials on how to do this - recipe type instructions.

[David Saraceno]

Do a test author with about five minutes of footage and evaluate the results.

[KMR]

Seems like a lot of work for such a small percentage of possible issues. If what you said was so much of a common problem, anyone who buys widescreen DVD's of hollywood movies would have problems all the time. I think the %age of people that might experience that (being really small) wouldn't even know it if it was happening.

By "quality difference" I think I just meant "quality difference", not a "problem". On my 32" Toshiba 4:3 CRT, I do often notice a reduction in quality for 16:9 enhanced material. This is simply a result of the fact that the DVD player needs to reduce the height of the image in the DVD source material in order to deliver the picture in its proper aspect ratio on a 4:3 set. This frequently results in more jagged lines in the image. Some players may do this better or worse than others. But I wouldn't call this a "problem" at all. It's just a necessary fact that I and all other users of 4:3 sets have to live with. And I agree that most people probably don't even know it's happening--but it is happening nonetheless.

[Sneakle]

For a quick start on making an autoplay dvd in DVD Pro this worked for me:
First, export to compressor, it's not too hard to figure out; choose one of the presets like "best 90 min". and output the result.
Here's a shortcut to using DVD Pro to make a simple autoplay dvd:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2872?viewlocale=en_US

[mrbrycel]

Thanks for the DVD Studio Pro tutorial, I will check that out and do a test when I get a chance.

I burned a 16:9 DVD in iDVD just to test, and I put one 16:9/720/24p version, and one 4:3/480i/60i version (I just dragged the 720/24p clip to a 480i/60i timeline in FCP and exported).

On a 4:3 SD TV, it automatically letterboxed the 16:9, and the 480i/60i converted version looked basically the same, but it seemed a tiny bit smoother (maybe FCP does a better pulldown than iDVD). The only thing I noticed, was there was a little red where the top of the frame meets the letterbox.

Then I tried it on a 16:9 Rear Rejection HDTV, and it looked like an extremely large amount of the 16:9 menu was cropped out on each side. Then I played the 16:9 clip, and it too was ridiculously cropped on all sides. I played the 4:3 clip, and although it looked stretched to fit the screen, I got the whole frame.

Is this a problem with iDVD, my exporting in FCP, or my TV?