HVX200 Footage to DVD

Peter,
That sounds like a good way to go. I did try that and Final Cut Pro won't let me put DVCPRO HD 720 24p sequence into a NTSC DV sequence. It gives me a frame rate error. How do I fix that??? I knew there was a cheaper way than buying DVD Studio Pro. I just need to compress the video in a better program before it gets to IDVD, right?
 
thefilmaddict said:
Peter,
That sounds like a good way to go. I did try that and Final Cut Pro won't let me put DVCPRO HD 720 24p sequence into a NTSC DV sequence. It gives me a frame rate error. How do I fix that??? I knew there was a cheaper way than buying DVD Studio Pro. I just need to compress the video in a better program before it gets to IDVD, right?
Click to expand...
Have a try this way: Import your DVCProHD 24p material into MPEGSTREAMCLIP and export it from there, re-interlacing. Then make the step if placing the sequence
into DV-NTSC. Are you sure you selected the correct frame rate in DV-NTSC?

You don't compress your edited material in another programm but you scale it from HD to SD in FCP
and let iDVD only do the compression from QT DV-NTSC into MPEG2.
 
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Peter,

I shot in 720 24pn mode. Which sequence settings should I use:

DV NTSC 48 kHz 23.98
or
DV NTSC 48 kHz 24
or
DV NTSC 48

Thanks!
 
Just to keep experimenting, I took my DVCPRO HD 720 24p Final Cut Pro Quicktime file and put it into a DV NTSC 48 kHz 23.98 sequence. I then cropped the top and bottom of the screen a little to clean up things in the frame that were cropped out on a HDTV. As a safety measure, I also added the Broadcast safe Color Correction filter. I then rendered the sequence. Next, I exported a quicktime file (using Native settings -- IS THAT A MISTAKE?).

I will take this DV Quicktime and drop it into IDVD. I will tell you how it comes out.
 
NOTE: I also made the quicktime movie self-contained and did NOT Recompress all frames. Please chime in if I am doing something wrong or should try something different!
 
The Dvd Came Out Much Much Better This Time. Idvd Works Great (for A Simple Dvd), But You Need To Compress/down Convert The Dvc Pro Hd Sequence To Ntsc Dv In Final Cut Pro First Before Burning It In Idvd.

Thanks For All Of The Help! Keep Adding Tips To Help Others Burn Nice Looking Hvx200 Dvd's.
 
thefilmaddict said:
I took my DVCPRO HD 720 24p Final Cut Pro Quicktime file and put it into a DV NTSC 48 kHz 23.98 sequence.
Click to expand...
Good

thefilmaddict said:
I then cropped the top and bottom of the screen a little to clean up things in the frame that were cropped out on a HDTV.
Click to expand...

Yuo'll be losing sharpness, man. Do the cropping when you point the camera and
use the zoom lever.

thefilmaddict said:
Next, I exported a quicktime file (using Native settings -- IS THAT A MISTAKE?)
Click to expand...

No idea what your native settings were. Check by clicking on the "options" button
and in the video section chose DV NTSC (if not pre selected), in the sound section
chose 48000 kHz (if not pre selected).

Click OK.

Man this is my first help desk job in a foreign language in a foreign TV format.
Hope it got you through the valley of problems. :-)
 
thefilmaddict said:
The Dvd Came Out Much Much Better This Time. Idvd Works Great (for A Simple Dvd), But You Need To Compress/down Convert The Dvc Pro Hd Sequence To Ntsc Dv In Final Cut Pro First Before Burning It In Idvd.

Thanks For All Of The Help! Keep Adding Tips To Help Others Burn Nice Looking Hvx200 Dvd's.
Click to expand...

That is exactly what I told you.
Glad it did help.

Best, Peter
 
Peter,
Your advice worked. As far as losing quality because of cropping, I did not lose any quality. Cropping an image should not take the sharpness out of the video. I think you thought that I meant that I zoomed into the video (I did not do that and yes, that would hurt the image). Cropping does not seem to hurt the image at all. Thanks for everything!
 
I believe idvd uses its own compression. I don't think you can use compressor first and expect anything magical. It is terrible at compression. DVD studio pro is well worth it. When you get into compressor you have so many choices on how to compress --- type of GOP, how many passes, what bit rate. It is not hard to figure it out and it'll make you much more happy.
 
Boomerang said:
Hey David are you happy with BitVice? I have seen lots of bad compression out of my recent upgrae to compressor and would like an alternative.

Also I agree HVX & FCP...... IDVD does not fit in to the equation.
Click to expand...

BitVice is a little difficult to work with using some of the frame rates out of the cam.

But it produces some excellent images, and appears to be faster than Compressor.

Wish Innobits would release the pro version.
 
thefilmaddict said:
Is there a way that I could just use IDVD to burn the DVD and use another program to do all of the compression? Also, is encoding the same as compressing a file (sorry, I'm new to DVD authoring as you can tell by my original post)?
Click to expand...

iDVD will not input mpeg2 or mpeg1 files. Just, for the most part, movie files.
 
sodotoguwangus said:
They do? I was under the impression that you loose TONS of quality when downconverting to DVD.

So, basically, what you are saying is that your DVD's look nearly as good as the original 720pn high-def signal? If so, that's great
Click to expand...

The operative phrases is "nearly the same." :-)

Essentially, I can see the compression issues, but my spouse never notices them.

The images are much better the HDV and DV25 encoding, and do compare favorably with the original footage on our HD plasma.
 
Don't let IDVD compress the HD file or the DVD will look like SH#T. Use Final Cut Pro to do the compression to a DV movie. Then, drop the DV file into IDVD and it will work great.

IDVD does a pretty good job of putting a DV movie onto a DVD. I'm not sure if you used DVD Studio Pro to handle the compression from the start, if that would make a better DVD (maybe it would).

I'm happy now with IDVD using Final Cut Pro to do the heavy lifting/compressing. IDVD is a simple way to make a DVD. If you want complex menus, use something better.

If I had DVD Studio Pro, I would do a quality comparison with IDVD, but I don't own it. Does someone want to perform this test for us?
 
The other significant issue with iDVD is that it does not compress the audio to Dolby 2/ac3.

That means incompressed aiff audio which is seven times bigger and 7 times more throughput than compressed audio.

This factors into bit rate for encoding video, and issues with compatibility with set tops.

Another reason to use DVD SP.
 
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