Best codec for DVD burn

I have an 83 minute film that I want to burn to a DVD. When outputting from FCP, what is the best codec to use for maintaining quality in 640x480 and fitting it onto a 4.7GB DVD?

You export to QuickTime Movie. Current settings. Take the file to Compressor and encode to Best QUality 90 minutes. Take the encoded file to DVDSP to author the disc.

All the best,

Tom

Tom:
Here's the problem, in detail. My original file is 17.39 GB. I opened Compressor and imported the file into the settings you indicated (DVD Best Quality, MPEG-2, Pass 4:3) and launched the program. What I ended up with was a file on my harddrive that read 6.2Mbps 2-pass 4:3 m2V, and the icon was gray. When I double-clicked on it, it launched MPEG Streamclip. All of this is well and good because I ended up with a file converted from 17.39 GB to 3.54 GB, EXCEPT that there is no audio, and I cannot figure out why. Any ideas?

It all depends on which codec your source material is in. Several years ago, I did an a/b test to answer this very same question. I had DV source footage, with minimal text on screen. I exported a DV version, and an 8-bit uncompressed version (this was before prores). Because exporting DV introduced another generation of compression in the DV realm, the footage looked a good bit worse than the 8-bit version. It was pretty easy to see the difference. By exporting from a DV timeline to the 8-bit quicktime, I was able to get a better result.

These days, as many formats have improved over what we had in the DV days (i.e. DVCPRO HD, ProRes, etc), it's not going to be as big a difference. If you're editing in DVCPROHD or ProRes, just output that format.

There are always ways to eek out a few more pixels of sharpness/clarity by choosing the correct format all the way through production and post, but even if you're working with a decent source (like DVCPRO HD), you don't really have much to worry about. Just use that all the way through, and you'll be fine.

I've also found that using IBP GOP structure in my MPEG-2 files (can adjust in the Compressor preset) yields significantly better results than using the stock Apple presets. You can also mess around with bitrates (both audio and video) to custom-fit your source to DVD. Same argument holds true here as in FCP export format--you will get decent results by just going with the standard Apple presets, but you can eek out a little more quality by fine-tuning your Compressor presets.

mpeg-2 does not carry audio. You need to run your original quicktime through compressor again with either the aiff 48/16 preset or more likely the Dolby Digital Professional 2.0 preset to create the audio file you'll need.

Thanks. I was unaware that I had more than one choice in the settings. All seems fine now in Compression. One question, however. By going through Compressor, shouldn't I end up with a viable, playable clip that I can burn to a DVD, as opposed to double-clicking on it and having it launch and go through MPEG Streamclip?

Yes, if you use an mpeg-2 preset in compressor, you don't have to do a thing in mpeg streamclip. Just drop the file that comes out of compressor into DVD Studio Pro (along with the audio file) and burn away.

Double-clicking only launched MPEG Streamclip because you have your OS set to open MPEG-2s with MPEG Streamclip as the default application. Select the file and press APPLE-I to change it. You don't need to open the file at all to use it in DVD Studio Pro.


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Compressor needs to create two file, the .m2v for the video and the .ac3 for the Dolby audio. These two files get muxed when the DVD is formatted in DVDSP.

All the best,

Tom

I highlighted both MPEG-2 and Dolby 2.0. I want to burn a simple DVD using Toast Titanium (not DVD Studio Pro) but when I drag the file into Toast I get a message that there is no audio. If Compressor created two files (audio and video), I cannot find the audio to import into Toast. Any suggestions?

Use DVD Studio Pro. or don't bother encoding the files in Compressor, just take your export from FCP straight to Toast and let it do it.

All the best,

Tom

I tried that. Toast gave a message that I needed three disks to do the burn, in that the 81 minute film coming out of FCP is 17.39 GB. As a DVD (according to the label) can only hold 4.7 GB, I have to compress it. Is there no way to compress a 17.39 GB clip to burn on a single disk using Toast? I am not yet up to speed on DVD Studio Pro; it would take me a while.

did you select the "video" or "movie" tab in toast, rather than burning it as data? Which version of Toast are you using? Have you successfully burned a true specs-compliant DVD-Video disc before? Or did you just burn quicktimes as data and you happen to have a dvd player that can handle raw video files?

From the two files created with Compressor, do this:

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