Export to DVD Settings

[Jeremy7]

After some thorough searching through the archives, I wasn't able to find a clear answer to my question. So here we go...

I shot a 3 min video in 720 24pn. I am exporting the video from After effects to play on a dvd. I am then buring the DVD in Adobe Encore to play on an SD TV set.

Here are my questions:

1. What are the settings I should have used to setup my composition in After effects to edit the 720p 24pn footage?
2. What should the export settings be in AE?
3. I assume the footage should automatically transcode in Encore, correct?
4. Does 720p footage play on a SD tv set normally, but with just a letter box? Or, do I need to output to 720x480 sd?

Thanks for helping to clarify these issues.

jeremy

 

[darwinandpaine]

Hey Jeremy7,

I saw that no one has yet answered your post and thought I'd do my best. I don't know about AE and Encore, but when I export from FCP to DVDSP, I don't really have to do much but set it to "letterbox" in DVDSP. There are "encoding" preferences that I've set up previously, but those are just preferences and have nothing to do with the actual processing.

When I set DVDSP to "Letterbox," I also tell DVDSP that I'm making an SD DVD. Then it simply puts it into the correct format for me (with the black bars top and bottom). The first time I did it, I couldn't believe how easy it was. Good luck.

 

[panchromatic]

Hey there, you are best to edit in a 720p setup, then software down-convert your timeline to letterboxed sd ( in fcp easy, not sure how that works in a.e...) then export to uncompressed 10bit sd ( whatever flavour ). Then simply author your 4x3 dvd using the output and away...At least thats what I do. Studio pro will take hd files and downconvert them, but they seem to come out a bit soft...

So can def answer question 2- Uncompressed 10bit sd 4x3 ( already letterboxed )
and 4- You have to down-convert the footage first

Really need some a.e guru to chime in with specific settings, but I think thats the gist of it..

 

[Noah]

I wouldn't letterbox it yourself- then what happens when you play the dvd on a widescreen tv? I would make a 16x9 dvd, but set it to 16x9 letterbox in the dvd authoring software like darwinandpaine mentioned, so that the dvd player plays it fully on a 16x9 television, but automatically letterboxes on a 4x3 television.