Quality loss when burning HD quicktime data in DVD studiopro

No problem. By set top I mean DVD player. The older the worse.

Always use progressive scan DVD players with component outputs or better.

I always use either Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden.
 
David S. said:
No problem. By set top I mean DVD player. The older the worse.

Always use progressive scan DVD players with component outputs or better.

I always use either Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden.
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The player makes a huge difference. When I went from a $250 JVC XVSA75 progressive scan player to a $900 Pioneer Elite DV-47Ai a few years ago the improvement was stunning. Especially after I went in and tweaked the settings a bit, particularly in terms of upping the various detail levels (the player has a ton of adjustable pix parameters). On my Panasonic 42" plasma EDTV a good DVD title rivals the picture I get with HBO movies in HD over my cable system. You can tell it's SD, but it's pretty freaking awesome SD.

Regarding the FCP output to DVDSP question, as others have said, Compressor is the answer. I'm getting outstanding results on the Pioneer player with HVX 720/24 footage output from FCP/Compressor/DVDSP. Editing in a full HD 720p timeline and exporting to Compressor using 2 pass VBR mode at the highest setting the program will allow length-wise results in a great looking DVD. Compressor takes a really long time to do its thing, but it's worth the wait.
 
Compressor allows you to set much more of the details involved in the encoding. DVDSP gives you very little control. The book "Compresor Quick-Reference Guide" has a really great explination of how to convert from HD to SD for DVD authoring.

Never set your compression Avg above 6, nor the Max above 7. Most set top players can't handle more than that, according to Bruce Nazarian, DVD encoding guru.

The image quality of BlockBuster DVDs is good, but still technically not as good as the original film version. Plus, those are using dual layer DVDs, which hold more, etc. And they use very expensive hard ware converters. Compressor can give you excelent results, but only if you use it properly.

Get the book, it's only about $23 and so very worth it. It shows you settings that are not generally intuative for what you're trying to do. And don't ever let DVDSP encode for you.

Always use Dolby 2.0 for you sound, always, and leave it at it's defaults. Simply selecting 90 min Best is fine, but there's more in Compressor you can do to make it better. Get the book.

Finally, when going from FCP directly to Compressor, you're actually using what gives the best results. FCP and Compressor work hand in hand, both having input into how the original footage is compressed in the first place, ignoring FCP's render files for Timeline playback.

As for BitVice being better than Compressor, not at all, no way. It's faster, but also super limited, you don't have very much control, and it only does one thing, MPEG-2 SD, period. It does NOT do better compression. For what it does, it's "as good as" Compressor, faster for sure, but not "better" in any way.
 
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I disagree (respectfully) with Ben's comment " . . . As for BitVice being better than Compressor, not at all, no way."

I use it almost exclusively and to my untrained eye it seems to produce better encodes.

I also have been exploring options in the PC world, ie Cinema Craft and ProCoder, but the issue is how to use DVCProHD source video on a Windows box natively.

Don't think it can be done.

But as Ben and others point out:

1. Keep maximum bit rates at 7mpbs or lower and target to about 6.5 or lower.

2. Dolby2/AC3 audio; not uncompressed aiff audio.

3. Good quality blanks

4. Progressive scan DVD players
 
David S. said:
I disagree (respectfully) with Ben's comment " . . . As for BitVice being better than Compressor, not at all, no way."

I use it almost exclusively and to my untrained eye it seems to produce better encodes.
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I've done, along with others in the industry, many, many, many side by side tests. BitVice has NEVER shown better quality encoding over Compressor. It's easy to mess up Compressor with bad settings, settings you're not allowed to access with Bit Vice Pro. But using Compressor properly, Bit Vice in now way can do better image quality.
 
Ben:

I also have done that testing and have compared BitVice to Compressor in the same way. There others in the industry both here and in the UK that say Compressor cannot come close to BitVice 1.7.

I've been doing DVD encoding since the first shipping Mac and DVDSP 1.0.

I even beta tested v.1, 2, and 3 for Apple.

Compressor 2.1 is a vast improvement.

Previously there were serious issues with Compressor spiking.

I and others believe BitVice does a better job. But I disagree that "BitVice has NEVER shown better quality."

Let's say we agree to disagree.

david
 
I'd love to see data showing Bit Vice doing better quality encoding than Compressor. Maybe way back when, but not today. If I ever saw the proof, I'd believe it. But as of today, I've not seen Bit Vice to anything any better than Compressor 2. DVDSP has nothing to do with it, anyway.

If I saw some evidience that showed Compressor 2 is inferior to BitVice Pro 1.7. If I actually saw that, I'd believe it. I've heard the "claim" made, but have not seen real evidence. Rumors are shallow.

You've been doing DVD encoding since the first Mac was ever shipped? Like, before there were DVDs?

My comparisson are between Compressor 2 and Bit Vice 1.7 sepcifically.

Seriously, if you can provide links to comparison tests, I'd love to read them. Cause I get told this all the time, but have yet to see a published test to that fact.
 
No, I said the first shipping Mac and DVD SP 1.0.

It cost a grand back then and was basically an Astarte (sp) product.

As to testing "data" I don't know what you are looking for. I evaluate based on what is shown or displayed and what others see as good encoding.

What you might find pleasing or bad is not what others might find pleasing or bad.

My reference to DVD SP is made to indicate that I've been through the beta testing evaluations and usefulness of Compressor or the previous mpeg2 export out of QT and FCP before that was changed.

So DVD SP was tied to the mpeg2 engine with each release of Pro.

I look for links Ben, but to me this data is entirely subjective.
 
I've been getting good reults using compressor best quality 90 min, but most of what I do is short. I wish there was a thirty minute option. There is for dvd hd, which would be great to do, but I don't have an HD dvd burner yet. Tried to compress the 30 min hd dvd and use the file for a dvd studio sd disc, but of course it didn't work.

Are ther better options in compressor if your output is 30 min or less?
 
I think it's safe to say that both Compressor and BitVice are excellent products. Just don't use Quicktime to create Mpeg2s.
 
I too use Bitvice for encoding SD DVD's. I find it is superior to Compressor when you are looking to create an mpeg2 with a max data rate below 7 and avg around 3.5. I made the switch to bitvice when I just couldn't get rid of some pixelation in a couple complex scenes with dissolves when using compressor. Didn't want to spend the money, but the results were superior, it's worth the money.
 
I also just want to say - almost everyone makes the suggestion of using Dolby rather than uncompressed audio. That's fine for a lot of material, but if you really care about fine detail of sound - especially music - this isn't always a good idea!
 
Nothing beats Dolby 2.0 for DVD. I still want to see the evidince that Bit Vice at this point in time makes better image quality than Compressor used properly. Note I said Compressor "used properly". I've tested it, don't see it, looking for evidence to the contrary. Anyone have a link to some tests?
 
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