PLEASE rescue me! DVD/Christmas Gift looks awful!

Logan LeBlanc

Logan LeBlanc

Well-known member
I know, I know. Everyone's in a rush. My case is no different.

My wife asked me last month to edit our wedding video for her Christmas gift. This is three years late. Gulp.
After lots of caffeine and Adderall, I actually finished it.

Between that and building an epic treehouse as a gift for my godchildren, I didn't factor in DVD compression and all the bullshit it entails.

Compressor is killing me. I'm either getting crappy pixelated footage or huge files that won't fit on a DVD.

Yes. I'm basically asking for a walkthrough. HOLD MY HAND (virtually, I mean).


The project was shot on (3) DVX-100s

Running time is 45:23

I'd like it to be the highest quality and cropped to 16x9 out from Compressor.

Output Formats:
1) Single-layered DVDsI
2) Dual-layered DVDs
3) I also have a Roku 2 XS that can play video files from a USB drive

Roku would probably be the easiest and best quality.

PLEASE, dvxusers, I beg you. HELP THIS POOR MAN!!!!

Phone 337.230.7178
 

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It's 45mins, so even with very high bitrates, a single layer DVD should be more than enough. That said, I assume that the blocky output is due to Compressor's lousy encoding engine. Since I don't typically use Compressor, I don't have the MPEG-2 presets stored to memory, but I assume they're likely bitstarved anyway. Now, typically, you can push DVDs to a safe zone of 8.5Mbits (technically a touch higher, but overhead and audio are the main reasons you cannot), with an average of I'd say, 6-7.

For OSX, I would use ffmpegx to do MPEG-2 encoding. I'm Windows based and prefer freeware tools when possible, so I'm afraid you'll have to do research for OSX, for there may be a better solution.

Short Version: Stay away from Compressor :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)
 
OP, do you have DVD Studio Pro?

You can output an MPEG-2 from Final Cut Pro and then import that to DVDSP. I've done that before with longer videos (30+ min) and had no quality issues whatsoever (going from 1080 to SD DVD).
 
Just saw this.

Stay away from Compressor? Nah. That's what it's for.

In FCS: File>Send to>Compressor.
Compressor will open
Drop down the "Apple" folder in the Settings of Compressor
Drop down "DVD"
Grab the entire "DVD: Best Quality 90 minutes" folder and drag it to the part at the top that says "Drag Settings and Destinations here"
You can then change your Destination (where it's saved) by right clicking on "Source" and selecting where you want it to go.
Then click Submit, and Submit again.

Wait until it's done, then drag the two assets you just created into DVD Studio Pro (one should be an ac3, on an m2v).
Drag those onto the empty track on the right.
If you want it to autoplay, right click "Track one" in the graphical tab and select "Play first"
If you want to create a menu, that's a LITTLE more advanced, so let me know if you need me to go over that one.
 
I do have DVDSP. I'm not sure where I'm going wrong. Should MPEG-2 look that bad?!?!? I'll give Jordan and Hawks suggestions a go.
 
Logan LeBlanc said:
I do have DVDSP. I'm not sure where I'm going wrong. Should MPEG-2 look that bad?!?!? I'll give Jordan and Hawks suggestions a go.
Click to expand...

My cynical view of MPEG-2 would lead me to say "Yes" :laugh:

Truthfully though, with sufficient bitrate, MPEG-2 should be fine.
 
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