Best Quality too big for DVD. need help

Hi,
I just completed a movie using iMovie. I compressed the movie as a Quicktime file at best quality and it is 6gb. I understand that this is too big for the 4.7gb dvd-r's i have.
I wanted to know the best way to get my movie to fit while still mainting the best possible quality. This project is very important and i need it to be able to play on a home dvd player tomorrow.
I'm using iDVD.
Can somebody please help me out.
Thank you so much

Hi Karl,
first of all: on this forum, my guess is, you are the one with the deepest insight in iMovie (one word: corrupted projects... oops, that was two).
BUT...
My job for more then 20 years is communication, advertisement as an example. make the message in less then 8 words...
Apples says: 60/120 minutes of an iM project fit on a dvd-r.Full stop.
that is from my p.o.v crystal-clear..HOW is this done? easy: make project, click "iDVD" - BOOM! done... to quote the CEO of a small computer company...
people buy cars without ANY idea, what ABS, EPS, etc is, besides HOW it works. they use it. full stop. anyone any idea, what happens, when you push the pedal...? ... when the car DOESN'T accelerate, you realize, you have NO clue...-
funny enough, this forum is CROWDED with people, who don't own a driver's license, but try to explain, the car manufacturer has done big bugs, lots of mistakes, should fix that & this.- you CAN use a car, to boil eggs, iron your shirts and create a painting... but THAT would need a better understanding of how a car works.
topics which are/can not understood lead to what the behaviorism calls "superstitious behavior" - you do some really weird things, because you believe it has any effect....
so, sometimes, less knowledge leeds to better results
(from a communicator's point of view)
I agree, maybe the "help" files should offer an "expert" mode....

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some things don't make sense here. please clarify.
Standard DV is roughly 5 minutes per gig, so that means that you have just about 2 hours of video, ok, got that. Now it's the two track thing that gets me.
Are you saying you have 4 hours of footage, the same thing from two cameras, and you're trying to set up a multi-angle DVD?
If it's just that you used two video tracks to edit, then NO, it is not your problem. It's still only 2 hours, the video will be mixed down to one track upon export from FCP to quicktime.
My suggestion is, instead of bringing a quicktime file directly into DVDSP, use compressor. I believe they have a preset in compressor 2 for a standard 120 minute DVD. IF you're project is truly less than 120 minutes, than that should be fine. If not, then you may have to manually make your own setting and lower the bitrate.
So the workflow is:
-open sequence in fcp
-file>export>quicktime movie... (you can uncheck "make movie self-contained" if you want it to export faster and you plan on keeping your original capture footage around)
-export your movie to a directory of your choice with a name of your choice.
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-drag the quicktime file you created into compressors main window, this will set it up. Now specify the export setting (120 minute HQ all files either 16x9 or 4x3 dep. on project) and specify a location for the files to be created. I strongly suggest that you use the HQ (High quality) settings in compressor. It's much slower to process, but much better quality.
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-when compressor is done, you should have 2 or three files. a .m2v file a .aif file, and a .ac3 file. The .aif is your PCM audio, much better quality than the .ac3, which is dolby 2 channel. However, the .ac3 is a much smaller file with a lower bit rate, so if the .aif makes the DVD file size too big, you can switch it out for the .ac3
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-the good news is, your DVD media is already rendered, so when you go to build your DVD it will go much, much faster!
By the way, I recommend you go to file>advanced>build do not do a burn and build.
I find it best to build the VIDEO_TS folder on a hard drive and then use a program like toast to create a DVD (using toasts from VIDEO_TS option). This method also allows you to go back into DVDSP, make tweaks, and reuse your VIDEO_TS folder, not having to rebuild the whole thing each time.
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NEED THE BEST QUALITY QUICKTIME MOVIE FOR DVD! THANKS FOR ANY ADVICE.

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I usually just output a self-contained quicktime movie with current settings and then compress with bitvice.
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What is the secret to getting movies on DVD's?<<</div>
The secret? It's no secret at all ... its called compression. In particular, MPEG-2 compression.
Regular DV25 (DV/DVCam/DVCPro) takes up about 13gb per hour. Since a single layer DVD (DVD-5) only has about 4.3gb of space available, the video will have to be compressed to MPEG-2, which is the current standard format for standard definition DVD-Video. Since your final program is to be view on TV sets, you'll want to maintain the same settings, frame rate and resolution as you have in FCP.
The process of compressing is also often called encoding. The basic process can be done from FCP via several methods;
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2. Export from FCP "Using Compressor." You can choose an appropriate preset or modify one to suit your needs. The result is the same as above so you'll still need to convert the AIF file into AC3. If you have Compressor 2, they've added the option of AC3 encoding so you won't have to use APack.
After you've done either 1 or 2 above, import the .m2v and AC3 files into DVD-SP for authoring, compiling (muxing) and burning.
Or you can export from FCP via "QuickTime Movie" (either self-contained or reference) then encode that file in Compressor or import it directly into iDVD or DVD-SP for encoding, authoring and muxing.
Toast and other third party programs can do MPEG-2 encoding, but in tests I've run, the quality of the compression from Toast was among the lowest.
so that it can be read both by an ordinary living-room dvd player (what's the english expression for that?!)<<</div>
We generally just call them DVD players or set top players.
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+What am I doing wrong???+
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I created a magazine using a template including bleeds. When I exported to make a PDF, it cut off part of the document when uploading for printing. When I incude bleeds, it makes the document too big for printing. I need help

eehenry wrote:
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Best Quality too big for DVD. need help

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