re: Compressor vs. DVDSP encoding?

I'm a newbie self-taught (just barely) in DVD Studio Pro so I'm missing a lot of basic knowledge I'd love to fill in. I was wondering: What is the advantage to using Compressor to generate the source media for the DVDs first, rather than importing the full-quality QuickTime movies and letting DVDSP Build from that? Does it shorten the encoding time, improve playback, prevent problems? I've only done DVDs with about 40-60 minutes of content up to now and haven't really been able to see any problems.

Also, how do I do the iDVD thing -- make DVDSP create the chapter buttons in a new chapter menu rather than me manually doing it myself, then linking each one to the chapter markers in my track?

Any info would be greatly appreciated!

Hi all.


Derek, hopefully, you have gone through all of the tutorials that have come with DVDSP. This is probably the first best step you can make if you are teaching yourself.

After this, you will want to start reading at least the first three chapters or so of the DVDSP manual. If this is not helpful, you may then want to get a good turorial book on using DVDSP. Like you, I am self-taught in FCP and DVDSP, and teaching yourself can be very rewarding, if you train correctly.

Here is a great tutorial to using Compressor:

[www.kenstone.net]


Rather than letting DVDSP encode your footage into MPEG2, the advantage of using Compressor is that you have greater control over the compression parameters that govern the quality of the compressed output. Also, it is better to pre-encode your assets into MPEG2 before you import them into DVDSP.

For example, suppose you import your footage into DVDSP, wait hours for your footage to encode, and then you find out that the encoded footage is inadequate. Worse yet, the encoded footage could end up being too big for the DVD-R to which you would burn your project. You would then have to re-encode your footage, thus eating more valuable time.

Probably the best feature of Compressor is its ability to perform batch encoding. Instead of the all-or-nothing approach to encoding within DVDSP, you can schedule encoding jobs with different parameter settings, and submit them as one batch.

When the batch has been processed, you will have multiple encoded versions of your original footage that you can import into DVDSP. Then, if one version is inadequate, you can switch to another version within DVDSP, and without having to re-encode.


As far as the "iDVD thing" that you described, I believe that should be covered in the DVDSP tutorial. However, if working in FCP and I believe iMovie, if you add chapter markers into your footage, and export the footage to DVDSP, DVDSP can use those exported chapter markers to automatically create menu buttons.


I hope the above information helps you.


Take care.

-DH

ok for using compressor (best quality 60 min)

But how managing that file in DVDSP?

I have the impression that by "build and burn" DVDSP operates a "second compression" ?

Marc

"I have the impression that by "build and burn" DVDSP operates a "second compression" "

Nope, it doesn't. "Build" means multiplexing and... "building" the DVD structure. No second compression at all.

Derek:
As for your question: Compressor uses the same core technology, but with much deeper control over the parameters. Heck, it can even produce hardware quality standards conversions (if you don't mind waiting!).

Let me give you just a few examples:
* Compressor allows you to insert chapter/compression markers in its' timeline. Yes, you can do that in FCP too, but what if some of your content was generated in another application, After Effects, a 3D app, whatever? In fact, DVD authoring becomes such a rich creative thing when you bring that kind of application into the picture. Motion too, of course.

* Sometimes compression produces shifts on the original levels of brightness/contrast/gamma. Compressor has built-in filters to correct that. It also allows you to place a watermark, etc.

* Just like it does standards conversions, Compressor 2's very sophisticated technology allows you to convert interlaced video to progressive. And I don't mean plain old "deinterlacing". How about that? It also, read this, allows you to convert "fake 16:9 into 4:3 with black bards" stuff into true anamorphic 16:9, as long as you enable the proper high quality controls. I have done it and it's... impressive. Most impressive

* For some reason, when you import Quicktime movies to use in menus in DVD SP, the Simulator keeps using the Qucktime asset instead of the encoded version. That's unreliable for testing, and also if you work with uncompressed (or less compressed) material, it just doesn't play back at full frame rate.

* Any but the most basic Motion or Livetpye projects used as assets in DVD SP are unbearable slow. Encoding them with Compressor is a must.

* Compressor allows you to manually interpret the original field order (many times the automatic detection makes a mistake) and even shift the order for the encoded file. That's also very important.



Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires - Argentina
www.adolforozenfeld.com

Who's using my name!?!?

Is it possible, unbelivable as it may be, that he's called Derek Mok too?



Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires - Argentina
www.adolforozenfeld.com

The poster is using DSL in Irvine California as Derek Mok. Could be that there is "another". Probably not like the poser who was using my name all around for a few days a while ago.

Hi all.


Adolfo, I use Compressor all the time when compressing my assets. I used to always export from FCP to Compressor. However, from a post which you made in another thread, I will start opening reference movies or self-contained movies directly in Compressor rather than export from FCP to Compressor. I believe you said that doing so would make a huge speed difference.

You said that hardware quality compression could be achieved within the software Compressor program. I was wondering if you could go into that statement a little deeper. I ask because, for the life of me, I can not fit a quality two-hour DV based footage onto a single DVD-5. Perhaps it is possible, and I just need to learn how to use Compressor a little better.

For now, I just set the average bit rate to 6 Mbps and the max bit rate to 7 Mbps. However, I find that at these settings, I can never get two hours onto a DVD-5. I know that you can easily do this when using a quality broadcast level camera to take the footage. The footage is so high in resolution, that you can turn down the average bit rate, and still achieve brilliant video results.

If you could go into the achieving hardware level results in the software Compressor, I would appreciate it greatly.

Thanks.

-DH

"You said that hardware quality compression could be achieved within the software Compressor program"

Did I? Wow. I'd rather say "close to hardware quality" or "near hardware quality". But don't worry. It certainly is up to a "professional" level.
This is of course such a big topic, impossible to cover in one, two or ten messages. Since we (you and I) don't mind hanging around in web forums, we will get it right sooner or later, all right?

"I just set the average bit rate to 6 Mbps and the max bit rate to 7 Mbps. However, I find that at these settings, I can never get two hours onto a DVD-5."

Let me show my ironic side a bit.
Didn't you by chance try the "120 minutes best quality 4:3" preset? Because I would say that could be a good idea

Seriously, Apple pours millions in creating this stuff. Trust me that, while a professional DVD author has every reason to tweak parameters, the presets are just fine for many users. They are designed as a compromise, ie, the best possible set-up for general use and.... in this case, fitting 120 minutes on a DVD!

There's only one BUT: You must also convert your audio in Compressor to Dolby/AC-3 (120 minutes means 120 minutes AS LONG as your audio is AC-3, and not AIFF/DV/PCM. The old versions of Compressor used different, more conservative math to name the presets, because they didn't expect you to use AC-3).

There are a few things that I always say, that I will just mention briefly here: DV NTSC is a bad source for DVD, because it has a reduced color grid that doesn't match the also reduced color grid in NTSC DVD (so you end up with severe color resolution loss). Also, high motion material is hard to compress, as is handheld material and anything with video noise produced by subexposition or small CCDs. Motion graphics is a mix: it has lots of motion, but it helps that it usually has large, clean, solid color areas. And finally, DVD is a consumer medium, with clear limitations. It WON"T look just like your master. But it still can be quite good.

I hope this could be of help to you!



Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires - Argentina
www.adolforozenfeld.com