dvd choppy video

HI all! I just transferred a 3/4" tape to DVD at Fotokem. The footage from their DVD looks good and smooth. When I imported it into FCP and then exported it to iDVD and burned it, it looks choppy now where lights and darks come together. I am also trying DVDSP but havent burned yet because the menus on that one arent quite as easy as iDVD.

What are the best settings with compressor to go to iDVD to have the best video possible, also best settings for DVDSP and if you think one burns better, etc. Any help would be great. Even the VHS tape looks better than the DVD! ack. Thanks, jennifer

> When I imported it into FCP and then exported it to iDVD and burned it, it looks choppy now
> where lights and darks come together.

First let's figure out just what you're doing.

You have 3/4" tape you're trying to convert into master footage for editing. Then why did you go to a low-quality format like DVD? Or do you mean that they had burned high-quality files to a data DVD? I don't think that's what you meant there.

And then you're extracting files from that video DVD, then editing it, then putting it right back into iDVD? That's three digital generations away from your analog source, with two very bad layovers in MPEG-2 land in the form of those video DVDs. You also didn't mention what codec you used to extract from the video DVDs from Fotokem.

Not sure what you're trying to do here.


www.derekmok.com

thank you, I probably should have had them transfer it to something else, they suggested digibeta but I dont have a deck for that. To get the video off the DVD first I used mpeg streamclip and used apple uncompressed codec I think it was. Since that was bad then I tried playing the DVD through my deck and using log and capture into FCP, it looks fine while playing on FCP. From there I exported to compressor using DVD best quality 90 minutes preset, which I put in DVDSP but I havent burned that yet.
For iDVD I went from FCP to QT movie for a quick conversion (which was probably bad) and then burned on iDVD.
Since, I did get a video DVD what do you think the best way is to get the highest quality out of that DVD onto another DVD with a menu?
Also, in the future should I transfer tape to miniDV or to data files on a DVD like you mentioned?
Thank you so much Derek! Jen

> Since, I did get a video DVD what do you think the best way is to get the highest quality out of
> that DVD onto another DVD with a menu?

I would have asked Fotokem for a digital file of some sort, captured directly from the original source tape. That way you bypass that first stage of MPEG-2 compression.

> I tried playing the DVD through my deck and using log and capture into FCP

Did you at least have a DVD player with a FireWire output? If it's a regular old DVD player, then you may have gone through composite outputs...ouch. You also didn't mention what you captured as.

> For iDVD I went from FCP to QT movie for a quick conversion (which was probably bad) and
> then burned on iDVD.

Not really, that's the way iDVD does it. As long as you didn't export in low quality. The question is whether your source clip was any good to begin with.


www.derekmok.com

>Also, in the future should I transfer tape to miniDV or to data files on a DVD like you mentioned?

I'd ask for QT Uncompressed or ProRes files and send them a portable hard disk to transport the footage.

>To get the video off the DVD first I used mpeg streamclip and used apple uncompressed codec I
>think it was. Since that was bad

I suspect something is wrong with your settings. It's a direct digital conversion with Mpeg Streamclip.

>Since, I did get a video DVD what do you think the best way is to get the highest quality out of
>that DVD onto another DVD with a menu?

If you don't have to edit the video, I'll demux the DVD with Mpeg streamclip and import that into DVDSP and create menus and remux. Lossless.



www.strypesinpost.com

HI Gerard/Srypes, Thank you so much! Can you tell me exactly what to do in mpeg streamclip? Do I open the DVD and then what? Sorry to be idiotic but it would be so great if you gave me step by step instructions! thank you so so much!

HI again, I did the remux and went to dvdsp and made a menu, now I am trying to build and it says
Compiler
Muxer BItrate too high

I have tried reduced the bitrate under dvdsp preferences. What am I doing wrong? Thanks!

>and it says Compiler Muxer BItrate too high

Bit rate can't be too high if your source is a DVD. What happens if you hit Apple I in Streamclip for inspector? What bit rate does it mention?



www.strypesinpost.com