Burn vs. Glass Plate DVD Quality

This has been an education. I'm learning quite a bit about the evils of MPEG2 Compression and how it can kill the look a well photographed piece.

Anyhow, the project, my first that I've had complete control over, is going to DVD in small, about 100 copies max, numbers. I shot it all on an XL2. It is a well photographed piece, about the Civil War in Iowa, with many landscapes and pans. It looks great on my monitor, but not so swell, when I export it as a Quicktime movie and burn to DVD.

I've been told that if I have the project put to DVD professionally, that the quaility will be somewhat better than if I burn on my Mac through DVD Studio Pro.

My longwinded question in a nutshell: Is having a project stamped to DVD better than one burnt to DVD?

Thank You

It will look as good as the authoring/encoding you do on the master - no matter which way you duplicate them - they will look the same...

There is a downside to DVD-R replication though - read below:


----------------

For those who are confused between the 2 routes:

Glass masters made from DLT, HDD or DVD-R are made for mass producing and will guarantee that your DVD will at least load (as long as you have authored correctly!) on any DVD player.

Usually you will opt for this route when making commercial releases or making many thousands of copies.

DVD-R (or +R) however - is what you burn from your Mac (or *spit* PC) these load/play on most DVD players of the last couple of years with no problem, however you can never guarantee that they will play on every DVD player. At last count I think the proportion of DVD players that cannot play DVD-R is only a few percent.

For the 100 copies it is probably not worth the time/effort/cost of making a glass master and pressed copies.

However - make sure your client knows the possible downside and always label DVDs as "DVD-R" or "DVD+R" if they are copies made in this way.

I usually add a small disclaimer saying that the disc requires a Player that is DVD-R compatible.





For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

Oh and bear in mind the quality of the DVD-Rs you use - if they are poor quality they might not burn or playback correctly.

Get ready for a late night burning the midnight DVD oil!





For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

Hard to find a replicater that will do 100. Generally its a 1000 minimum. We got a deal with Discmakers. Check the lafcpug discount page

discmakers will do a replication order of 300.

-chl

Handcranked - for small runs you might want to beg/borrow/hire a dvd recorder. Using this you can send the signal straight from the timeline to the hard drive of the recorder, no encoding steps (all realtime). Then use the hdd to replicate copies of the show over and over.

This has saved me hundreds of hours so far, and with the compression settings at maximum quality it does a pretty nice job.

Most of them seem to be around A$900 - I'm guessing about $500(?) American, they do +r. -r and all the flavours in between, and if you're doing lots of small runs they are becoming a godsend.

BUt this won't work if he wants menus.

-CHL

Yes, true. The one I use does do menus, but not very attractive ones. It does do chapter markers both before and after recording though, so you can still jump from chapter to chapter,

Thanks, everybody for your help.

Jude, although I do want attractive menus, I'm curious about what the difference is between a DVD recorder and the DVD Superdrive that I am using.

I want the absolute best quality with what I have. For now I can afford using my Canon XL2. For what this camera cost, the picture quality is pretty amazing-- when you're watching the tape. Things go south from there. But still, I have to accept what I ahve and live with it for now. Some day, over that not too distant rainbow, there lies a HD Camera-- a true HD Camera. Ah, bliss.

The quality of your DVD has nothing to do with burned vs. replicated. The replicated dvds will be more compatible with all sorts of dvd players. Burned DVDs will be less compatible. The quality of your DVD will depend on your encoding method. And no encoding method will make your films look better than your tape master. The best is that it will look exactly as just good as your tape master.

use the 2 pass VBR in compressor for your encoding. or you may look at another encoder like bitvice.

You're located in boston right? I think we've met a couple times before.

-CHL

>> I'm curious about what the difference is between a DVD recorder and the DVD Superdrive<<


Basically a DVD recorder is a stand alone device that is designed to record off-air, or from dvd to dvd, or from camera to dvd. It has an internal hard drive that stores the footage you record, which can then be compiled, organised, marked into chapters and a bunch of other stuff before burning to a new DVD.

It does compress the footage, but the result that I have seen so far have been pretty good. Also, it seems to have a better hit rate for playing on other peoples dvd players. Not perfect, but not too bad so far.

The thing I like best about it is that it records and encodes in real time, so when I make client copies of shows all I have to do is play it out of the computer into the dvd recorder and hit record. Then, when the show is finished, hit stop, insert a blank dvd and set it to make a copy. On the machine I'm using, a half hour project takes about 9 to 12 minutes each copy.

I have the deck set to maximum quality, and I don't have to bother with any maths. It gives me a graph to show me how full the dvd is at the quality I require. 2 hours at max quality is fine with some room to spare.

Anyway - I love how simple and reliable it's been for small runs. Large runs I just send off to a DVD house - not worth the bother when they have automated machines that will punch out copies all night long while you sleep.

If you are going to have ayone other than yourself do DVD-R duplication (1 at a time burn), print the label, print the boxcover insert, and put the DVD in the case, you can pend upwards of $10ea.

A year ago I found a Replicator company who did 1000 for $1000.

So you could see what today's pricing is and do the math... buy parts and labor for 100 copies...

Either burn them one at a time.. of buy a small 1:x tower (1:2, 1:6, 1:9)...

Or buy a short run replicated job.

Then it depends on your audience. Some 3rd Party catalog companies don't like carrying DVD-R duplicated stock ... because they don't know that today's state of art technology works!