Finalizing with FPC and DVD Studio

Hello fello Mac Fan Editors!

I'm a noob, so please bare with me. I'm working on a relatively new iMac dual core with plenty of memory (for now). I am editing in Final Cut Pro, and have most of the bells and whistles such as DVD Studio, Compresser etc..

Excluding an issue about the opening crawl for Star Wars E3, I have a rough cut of one of my edits that I wanted to test so I burned to DVD to see the results. I'm not satisfied with the results so I'm hoping that someone more experienced can point me in the right direction. (I'm at work and not in front of my computer so I'm going to run off of memory here)

My workflow was as follows (provided to me by someone who edits original movies, but not a fan editor):

The clip in question runs 2 hours 13 minutes, or 133 minutes.

In FPC I used Send to -> Compressor. As I'm planning on using a dual layer DVD, my friend suggested I try setting to 90 minute version believing this would provide the least compression which would then be mitigated by using the DL disk. Set the sample rate (I think it's called) to 7 and then submitted. It created an AC3 and M2v file as expected.

I brought these into DVD Studio, dropped it into the movie icon, set it to play first and deleted the menu icon. I set my chapters, made a few other adjustments at my friend's instruction and burned the movie (straight burn, didn't build/compile or whatever individually.)

The resulting DVD looks 'OK' but not nearly as good as the source (My wife thought it looked good, but she's not the visualphile that I am). I'm such a noob that I don't know where I'm introducing the degradation. Before I left work I set it to compress again, this time for a 150 lenght movie and planned on trying again, but I figured I'd hit you experts up to see if there is a known best way to do this and save my learning curve (and expensive DL disks)

thanks in advance!

I match the compressor length to the actual seq length.
what size was the m2v that compressor created?
did you set DVDSP to double layer?

killbillme said:

I match the compressor length to the actual seq length.
what size was the m2v that compressor created?
did you set DVDSP to double layer?

Click to expand...

I fired off a compression at 150 before I left for work this morning. I didn't note the file size but I did set DVDSP to dual layer. I'll send it through DVD Studio when I get home and see what the quality is. I'll let you know tonight.

Thank you for your responses!

At 90 minutes, the file was roughly 6.8 gigs, at 150 it was 3.7.
I burned the 3.7 to a single layer disk and the result was more-or-less the same as the first approach. I suspect my rip may have introduced compression via some observed quality setting. I'll retrace my steps.

Change the bitrate in Compressor. If you look at the details of the video output it will tell you the final size. Just keep it under 4 GB to ensure you have enough room for menus and audio and whatnot.

Thank you TC. I will experiment with this. Definitely still learning now it all fits together. You know, a lotta ins, lotta outs, lotta what-have-yous. And, uh, lotta strands to keep in my head, man. Lotta strands in old Duder's head. Luckily I'm adhering to a pretty strict, uh, drug regimen to keep my mind limber.

I also tracked down some compression issues to how I was ripping the files, frame-rate what-not. I assume that the 4gb guideline is if the intention is for a SL dvd?

L8wrtr said:

Thank you TC. I will experiment with this. Definitely still learning now it all fits together. You know, a lotta ins, lotta outs, lotta what-have-yous. And, uh, lotta strands to keep in my head, man. Lotta strands in old Duder's head. Luckily I'm adhering to a pretty strict, uh, drug regimen to keep my mind limber.

I also tracked down some compression issues to how I was ripping the files, frame-rate what-not. I assume that the 4gb guideline is if the intention is for a SL dvd?

Click to expand...

Correct. If you have any specific questions about FCP, Compressor or DVD Studio let me know and I'll try to help you out.