Please help me compress my HDV!

I have a 2 hour theatrical production I shot in HDV 108060i. It has been exported out of FCP5 as Quicktime movie and is 24GB. How do I fit this onto a 4.7GB DVD. I am running G5 dual 2.3, 4G of ram. Is it possible?

Hi Greengiant,

We'll need more iformation to help you. Do you mean you need to create a DVD that plays on a standard DVD player (in which case, that won't be HD)? or do you need to use the DVD to store digital files in order to transport your HD quicktime movie to another machine or some special format for playback/projection?

Any info you provide will help us help you.

Travis
VoiceOver Guy and Entertainment Technology Enthusiast
[www.VOTalent.com]

Click Compressor 2 to open it.
Go into Preferences > Default Setting:
choose DVD Fastest Encode 150 min 4:3
Slide the mouse over and select ALL
Drag your QT movie file into the Compressor Window.
Don't click on the file yet. (The highlight will be below the file).

In the Inspector Window that will open up,
Click on Encoder
in File Format choose mpeg 2
Video Format: NTSC
Rate: 29.97
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Field Dominance: Top First
Click on the Quality tab
choose mode: 1 Pass VBR
The other two tabs GOP and Extras (I leave these alone.)
(I also leave the other icons of the Inspector window alone)

Under the Compressor batch window where you have the file,
click on the file once. and hit Submit in the lower part of the window on the right.
A window will open up and the compression process starts. It takes a while... hours :-)

Then you'll end up with the picture and sound files to insert into DVD SP and make your 4.7 GB DVD.

This will get you started. There is a lot to learn. You have to experiment from this point on.

Thanks for the response Travis, I need to put this FCP5 project I just finished in HDV onto a DVD for viewing on a player/TV. Do I need to disk for this? Is there a compressor that will shrink it down that far without sacrificing too much quality?

Hi Greengiant.

The steps outlined Filmmans' respose (above) should do what you need. My guess is that the quality will be adequate, depending on your standards of course. If you need much higher quality, you will need a compression expert with expensive tools and a great deal of time - Try it and see if it works for you - it probably will.

Not sure what you mean by "Do I need to disk for this?" If you mean "Do I need two disks for this?" the best way to find out is to burn one DVD and see if it's "good enough."

Travis
VoiceOver Guy and Entertainment Technology Enthusiast
[www.VOTalent.com]

Thanks again, this user group forums are a great resource. Thank you.

Thank you filmman, 16 hours to go. It'll be worth the wait.

Thanks filmman, I waited 16 hours and it happend. I am very happy. Thank you for your response. I guess now I'm getting greedy. Can I gain resolution if I put my project half and half on 2 DVD's. I know beggers can't be choosers. You seem pretty smart. Thanks in advance.

John Deyoe
GreenGiantVideo

Greengiant - you can't gain resolution but you can gain the quality of your compression - if you have twice as much space to play with (2 DVDs) then each half of the project dosn't need to be compressed so much in order to fit to the disk and you can then use higher bit rates

Caveat: Most people hate having to switch discs while playing a movie. That's why the first generation of DVDs, which had followed a similar format to laserdiscs (LDs, that ancient ancestor of the DVD), were universally unpopular. To split up a film like GoodFellas onto two sides...yuck.


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