FCP to iDVD to DVD

[cineliterate]

Hey guys and gals,

Shot several shorts on a DVX100A and have been using FCP to edit them. It came time to export them to a DVD and I've been having a few problems. I'm using iDVD to publish and for some reason I can't figure out how to export the files in the highest quality. I keep getting these odd horizontal lines over everything whenever there is movement in the frame. Haven't had this problem in any other medium. Could someone step me through exactly what I should be doing to export a project from FCP to iDVD to an actual physical DVD? Any help would be MUCH appreciated. Thanks!

-Ian

 

[cineliterate]

No one knows how to do this? How have you guys been showing people your work? I think I kinda figured it out, but I still get those horizontal lines on the footage when there's movement. Anyone?

-Ian

 

[VaricamLife]

1) What version of Final Cut Pro do you have? Newer versions come with DVD Studio Pro (as part of the suite) and that's far better choice than iDVD.

2) How are you exporting the file from you timeline? Are you simply exporting a Quicktime/Final Cut Pro Movie, are you using Quicktime Conversion, or are you using Compressor? If iDVD will take MPEG-2 files, I would use Compressor and let that handle the compression, not the built in compression tools of iDVD.

3) Where are you seeing these horizontal lines exactly? To me it sounds like you're seeing fields of interlaced video. And that would imply that you're watching your DVD on a computer monitor. Your computer monitor is 100% useless for quality control. You need a broadcast monitor for that (or in the case of a finished DVD, at the very least, just a real TV that will actually play back interlaced footage like its supposed to).

Cheers.