Having trouble burning a DVD of HD footage

I edited HD footage of a play on FCP 5. I usually make DVDs with iDVD. When I tried to burn the regular FCP file of the play onto a DVD, I got a DVD with no picture. I've tried exporting it using Quicktime conversion and halfway through the process, it stops and says "NOT ENOUGH DISK SPACE" or something like that, when I have over 100 gigs open on my external hard drive.

not clear about some things - so you took your same as source clip from FCP which is in HD and "When I tried to burn the regular FCP file of the play onto a DVD, I got a DVD with no picture." What program did you used to attempt this? Any normal DVD authoring program (iDVD, DVD Studio Pro, etc.) will encode the file as SD size so it can go on the DVD. And what conversion are you doing through QT conversion, what to what?

I always love it when someone says:

"... it stops and says "NOT ENOUGH DISK SPACE" or something like that...."

"Something like that" is not good enough! The exact text of the error message was right there in front of you, and every word of it means something.

I think it's actually telling you you're running out of disk space during this process. You may have "lots of room" on your external hard drive, but it's pretty clear that's not where this output is going if it's running out of room. Or, your Quicktime conversion is upressing it to something huge, and it truly is filling up your drive. What were you trying to do with Quicktime conversion? There is a lot of missing information.

I think iDVD makes its temp files on the main hard drive, so how full is your main hard drive?

Also, what kind of HD are you talking about?

I apologize for not being clear enough, I am not much of a technical person. The sequence is about an hour and 45 minutes long. The footage was filmed with a Canon HV20. The footage, I believe, is hi definition

Miller- I used iDVD version 6.0.4. I used the same exact procedure I have always used (although I could never make DVDs with footage from the HV20 without converting it to Quicktime first, but when I had my older DV camera I did the same procedure and it made DVDs fine) just dragging the FCP file from my external hard drive to the icon in iDVD I tried to convert the sequence in FCP and I hit File>Export>Using Quicktime Conversion. It was supposed to convert to an MOV file.

Scott-To make sure I got the exact text of the message, I have just repeated the Quicktime conversion. Same result as always; it's converting for 2-4 days and then it stops and I get the message, and I now quote, "Error: File is too big." I have 68 gigs available on my internal hard drive.
"What were you trying to do with Quicktime conversion?"

I don't feel I fully understand your question, I'm sorry. I was trying to convert it to an MOV file if that helps, since when I tried to just send the plain old FCP file as an independent file to iDVD, it made a pictureless DVD.

Btw I do appreciate you fellas helping me (you too, Jude).

Given how little control you get over the encoded media in iDVD, I'd strongly suggest you use Compressor to make an MPEG-2 and AC3 audio, then use DVD Studio Pro for the DVD.

As for having space for the exported QuickTime movie, you didn't tell us any of your settings (Jude had asked the same thing -- "What kind of HD are you talking about?" -- Sequence Settings, frame size, codec, export settings -- so there's no way for us to tell you what you're doing wrong or right. If you were editing in Uncompressed 10-bit HD, 1920x1080 at 60i, then 100GB is chump change. 100GB would be just under five and a half minutes in Uncompressed 10-bit HD 60i.


www.derekmok.com

What's AC3? I have Compressor 2. I made the file an MPEG-2 with Compressor, added it to DVD Studio Pro and it doesn't have any sound when I play it in DVD Studio Pro.

AC3 is the sound file. You have to include it in the DVD Studio Pro project. If you named the MPEG-2 and the AC3 files the same aside from the extension (which you should), when you drag the MPEG-2 into a track, the AC3 will follow along automatically.


www.derekmok.com

Sorry for being the village idiot. The MPEG-2 file I made originally didn't drag anything with it when I went to put it into DVD Studio Pro. I went back and tried to compress it again, thinking I did something wrong, I marked a check in the check box of something called "create layered sound" or something (sorry, I just looked back to Compressor to see the exact name of what I confirmed/checked in the check box but I couldn't even find the option, it was in the Inspector window), and then the file I made I can't even put into DVD Studio Pro at all.

The latter part of the name of the first MPEG-2 file I made is MPEG-2.m2v
The latter part of the name of the second MPEG-2 file I made is MPEG-2.mts

[strypesinpost.com]



www.strypesinpost.com

> The MPEG-2 file I made originally didn't drag anything with it when I went to put it
> into DVD Studio Pro

It would only do that if the AC3 file has been imported into the DVD Studio Pro project. Open your DVD Studio Pro project file, go into the Assets window, click Import and choose both the .m2v and .ac3 files. Drag both into the blank track. (This operation is where if both files are named the same, dragging the video will also automatically drag the audio. However, if you didn't customize your Compressor "Destination" preset, or change the file names after compression, by default Compressor will not have named the video and audio files the same.)


www.derekmok.com

Whew..finally got it! Only I couldn't figure out the AC3 thing, I couldn't even find anything with the phrase "AC3." I appreciate your help, I'm just a dumbass. What I ended up trying was converting the FCP file to an AIFF. Then when I dragged the m2v file into DVD Studio Pro, the audio part got filled up as well as the image part.


Thanks again for all your help, guys! My cast and I really appreciate it!

The ac3 setting is in the same folder as the DVD presets in compressor.



www.strypesinpost.com

It's the Dolby Digital preset.

All the best,

Tom