1.5hrs HD to DVD in FCP?

Justin Marx

Justin Marx

Well-known member
Ok, gotta send a film off to SLAMDANCE.. Could someone give me STEP by STEP instructions on how to go about that in FCP (the new version).

I want it to look great, I know it wont be HD..

How do I keep my 16:9 framing? I don't want to squeeze it, I'd rather have the bars on the top and bottom..

It's almost 90 min, so will it fit on one DVD?

Also, what about sound?

Thanks guys!!!
 
You DO want to "squeeze" it -- i.e., make an anamorphic DVD. It will play fine and you'll have your 16:9. You'll have a higher-resolution picture, too, because you'll be using the full 720x480 frame, instead of throwing away a quarter of it with black bars.
 
One word mate: Compressor.

In Final Cut Pro, open up your HD timeline. Select the timeline. Go to File | Export | Using Compressor.

Compressor will open up. Select your best quality 90 mins pre-set choice (16:9 of course). You'll prob just need the MPEG-2 and the AIFF options (you can do the dolby digital one too if you want to deal with assembling that as well).

The hit submit and go have some beer and a good nights sleep and it'll be ready in the morning hopefully. This is a very slow process to make it work, but it should work. I've not done 90 mins, but about 25-30 and I've had great luck with Compressor. I think its BenB here on the board that really likes BitVice. I'm not sure how easy it would be for BitVice to do the HD to SD on the fly kind of thing for you, ask Ben, he can probably help you out more w/ the BitVice workflow (which is apparently comparable quality but much faster render times).

cheers.
 
OK.

(You'll have to go through them books with your software one day...) but here goes.

Finish your movie (audio/video/all)

First pitfall:
Don't set any levels too hot (Audio or video)

This means for audio:
Quite often it will be a good idea to give 12db (or even 18db) headroom.

Why?
Because this is standard and the screening equipment is probably set up for this. (If you have time, check with them first!)
I've seen too many films get f***'ed by too hot audio levels. No good.

For video:
Check your scopes and confirm that all saturation and levels are within the legal range (That means highlights not above the 100 and blacks not below zero, and no red ink in the histogram). Use the 3-way CC to adjust as needed. The new scopes are way better than the old. Jippee!

Why?
So your images will not look blown out or underexposed.


Next:
Nest finished sequence AND CHOOSE MIXDOWN AUDIO BUTTON
(Open finished sequence , "Selct all" and choose "nest items" from "Sequence" dropdown menu)

Why?
You are at risk of loosing - unsync'ing audio othervise.

You could then alt-doubleclick the sequence and apply the broadcast safe filter for final render if you want, but hey, hang on a sec and finish first....

Right-click sequence in browser and check that render settings are set at "best" and "high precision YUV".
Also confirm that the field dominance is set to "none" if footage is progessive.

Good?

Do final render.

Add chapter marks, if you wish.

Add compression markers if you see places you do not want to be messed up in a GOP (This is if you're going the Compressor route)

Next - making of the DVD

Either export reference file (export quicktime and NOT checking the "make file self-contained) or choose "export with compressor.

If you're out of time Choose one of the Compressor presets. 90 minutes is not a problem. Personally I prefer BitVice. As easy as Compressor and faster and better.
You do NOT want to letterbox your image in either case.
If you still have some time to play, experiment with Compressor settings, preferrably on images with lots of info changing in them untill you're happy with the result. Do NOT set the bitrate too high or too low.

Remember to choose the "dolby" encoding for the audio.

OK
Compress!

Open DVD Studio Pro.

Import assets (Audio/Video & menu items.

Add play button and make it point to track one/chapter one.

Set the track to 16:9 Pan/scan & letterbox

Drop audio and video on track

The menu often does not work as 16:9, even when you set it to. Keep it at 4:3.
(I dunno where the bug lies)

Preview your disk with the built in tools.

Don't despair when the image comes in as 4:3. This is the default for DVDSP. Just change aspect to 16:9.

Test chapter marks. Be happy.

Next:
DO NOT BURN DVD!!!

Why?

You want a file master as a disk image (to make further copies) Right?

Choose "Build & format" from the menu.
Make a folder for the files to be saved.
Set output device to harddrive.

This makes a nice disk-image for your archival and further copying of the DVD.

Double click the finished disk-image and test DVD with DVD-player.

If everything is good

Burn folders (AUDIO_TS & VIDEO_TS) to DVD, preferably with Toast.

Good luck at the festival!

Gunleik
 
Last edited:
Gunleik,

That was a fine response, man. Thanks for the step by step. I'm also rushing to get my short out to Slamdance and this is exactly what I was looking for.

Cheers,

Steve
 
gunleik said:
Next:
Nest finished sequence AND CHOOSE MIXDOWN AUDIO BUTTON
(Open finished sequence , "Selct all" and choose "nest items" from "Sequence" dropdown menu)
Click to expand...

Gotta ask, why bother with the nesting? I agree with the mixdown, definitely always use it myself prior to outputting my deliverable, but I don't see the necessity or reasoning for the nesting? I'm also a little skeptical about ever using nests because frankly I've never found FCP + Render of nested sequence to be provide good results. Anyway, just curious as to your reasoning on that one.

cheers.
 
Nests and FCP are not a good combination - agreed!
Except for this particular use (in my experience, that is)

Before final delivery I like to do a fresh render at the highest settings of a project, because - quite frankly - I mess a lot around with settings during an edit - and find that FCP not always handles the numerous render files very well.

I could have written:
Flush your render cache
Check sequence settings (On all relevant sub sequences for a 90 min feature...)
Mixdown audio
Do final render

But the "Nest & render" thing as a final step takes care of all these actions.

But then again - If I was to do further edits, I'd throw away the nested sequence and work on the subsequences as they are.

Also this procedure ensures that there is no re-rendering on the final product, i.e: Just one generation loss.

Gunleik
 
Ahh okay, didn't realize it was just your way of doing a 'final' render of the entire timeline. I'm so used to the offline/online workflow. Our final render is the render of the onlined project file, and we have picture lock for that so no more editing will be done at that point. When we render the online sequence we do our final render.

Thanks for the response though.

cheers.
 
Cheers!

I just edited in a tip of remembering to add compression markers for tricky spots. And come to think that this - or related questions - is one of the more frequently asked. Maybe we should all add up our: Output final edit for DVDSP tips to make this a sticky?

As for online/offline - I see your point, but as most people here come from HVX/DVX and not Varicam/AJ-1200 or HD-CAM (I guess) it's pretty much a non-issue.

But I may well be wrong.
cheers! (and I'm having a beer! -;)

Gunleik
 
gunleik said:
OK.

(You'll have to go through them books with your software one day...) but here goes.

Finish your movie (audio/video/all)

First pitfall:
Don't set any levels too hot (Audio or video)

This means for audio:
Quite often it will be a good idea to give 12db (or even 18db) headroom.

Why?
Because this is standard and the screening equipment is probably set up for this. (If you have time, check with them first!)
I've seen too many films get f***'ed by too hot audio levels. No good.

For video:
Check your scopes and confirm that all saturation and levels are within the legal range. Use the 3-way CC to adjust as needed. The new scopes are way better than the old. Jippee!

Why?
So your images will not look blown out or underexposed.


Next:
Nest finished sequence AND CHOOSE MIXDOWN AUDIO BUTTON
(Open finished sequence , "Selct all" and choose "nest items" from "Sequence" dropdown menu)

Why?
You are at risk of loosing - unsync'ing audio othervise.

You could then alt-doubleclick the sequence and apply the broadcast safe filter for final render if you want, but hey, hang on a sec and finish first....

Right-click sequence in browser and check that render settings are set at "best" and "high precision YUV".
Also confirm that the field dominance is set to "none" if footage is progessive.

Good?

Do final render.

Add chapter marks, if you wish.

Add compression markers if you see places you do not want to be messed up in a GOP (This is if you're going the Compressor route)

Next - making of the DVD

Either export reference file (export quicktime and NOT checking the "make file self-contained) or choose "export with compressor.

If you're out of time Choose one of the Compressor presets. 90 minutes is not a problem. Personally I prefer BitVice. As easy as Compressor and faster and better.
You do NOT want to letterbox your image in either case.
If you still have some time to play, experiment with Compressor settings, preferrably on images with lots of info changing in them untill you're happy with the result. Do NOT set the bitrate too high or too low.

Remember to choose the "dolby" encoding for the audio.

OK
Compress!

Open DVD Studio Pro.

Import assets (Audio/Video & menu items.

Add play button and make it point to track one/chapter one.

Set the track to 16:9 Pan/scan & letterbox

Drop audio and video on track

The menu often does not work as 16:9, even when you set it to. Keep it at 4:3.
(I dunno where the bug lies)

Preview your disk with the built in tools.

Don't despair when the image comes in as 4:3. This is the default for DVDSP. Just change aspect to 16:9.

Test chapter marks. Be happy.

Next:
DO NOT BURN DVD!!!

Why?

You want a file master as a disk image (to make further copies) Right?

Choose "Build & format" from the menu.
Make a folder for the files to be saved.
Set output device to harddrive.

This makes a nice disk-image for your archival and further copying of the DVD.

Double click the finished disk-image and test DVD with DVD-player.

If everything is good

Burn folders (AUDIO_TS & VIDEO_TS) to DVD, preferably with Toast.

Good luck at the festival!

Gunleik
Click to expand...

WOW! Thank you so much Gunleik! I think I'm gonna need to print this one and give a day to getting it right!

Thank you! I'll let you know how it goes!
 
Justin Marx said:
Ok, gotta send a film off to SLAMDANCE.. Could someone give me STEP by STEP instructions on how to go about that in FCP (the new version).

I want it to look great, I know it wont be HD..

How do I keep my 16:9 framing? I don't want to squeeze it, I'd rather have the bars on the top and bottom..

It's almost 90 min, so will it fit on one DVD?

Also, what about sound?

Thanks guys!!!
Click to expand...


I am trying to follow your instructions, but when i try to export to QT i get the following message. Codec not found. You may be using a compression type without the corresponding hardware card. I am running FCP 5.1.2 on a macbook. What am i doing wrong?
 
How are you exporting a quicktime exactly? Are you using quicktime movie option or quicktime compression option? And if you're looking to author to a DVD and use Compressor (and not BitVice) you don't need to export a quicktime. There's nothing wrong exporting to Compressor straight from your locked cut timeline/sequence. That's the way I do it and I never have problems.

cheers.
 
Hi!

Varicam is right! (Even though I'm responsible for this...)
You can export directly to compressor. I personally prefer not to, to not lock my FCP off, but I guess this could be a better workflow many times. Actually I've been starting to send off compressor jobs to other machines, which is even better -;)

Try what Varicam says!

Cheers!
(I'll make that step clearer...)

edit after reading some:

It actually says:
Either export reference file (export quicktime and NOT checking the "make file self-contained) or choose "export with compressor.

So I think it's still kinda valid...

Gunleik
 
Last edited:
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