Final Cut Pro output help (DVCPRO50, 24p)!

[John Rivers]

Hey everyone,

Having some difficulties and confusion with outputting my HVX captured projects to DVD or other. There are tons of settings, and I don't think I'm getting quite the best image I can right now.

I shot a project with the following settings: DVCPRO50, 480/24p (not PA), Letterbox

What settings should I be using in Final Cut (5.1) to edit and then output my footage to DVD, and make sure I get the highest quality from it? I captured the footage directly from my P2 cards as well, and currently they read "29.97 fps", so is that an issue? I'm just unsure about where to start with all of this.

Thanks alot for your help.

- John

 

[Richard Sutcliffe]

Hi John, first up, for future projects dont shoot letterbox, shoot squeeze. letterbox is a cropped 4:3 image and a 4:3 is a cropped 16:9 image so you are losing a huge ammount of quality right there. Much better to letterbox for 4:3 in post.

You need a DV50 timeline with 4:3 aspect ratio. I cant help with the frame rates unfort as Im in PAL land.

Once you have the timeline setup correctly export the timeline using compressor. select the highest quality DVD expoert you can fit onto the disc.

When you import the assets into DVD studio Pro you can setup your letterboxing and aspect ratios for playback right there. There is a helluva lot to learn between those three packages and it takes time, no shortcuts unfortunately.