Compressing HDV for SD DVD

I am cutting a HDV project shot at 1080i60
I want to send it through compressor 2 to DVD studio Pro for a standard definition DVD. What is the best way to do this so I don't get a jittery picture.
Also I have been asked to output a master to MiniDV. When I convert to DVCPRO/NTSC I also get a jittery Picture. Is there a good setting for this as well?
MARK
I am using FCP 5.1.4
Compressor 2.3
DVD Studio Pro 4.1.2

Hi:
Check this site: Bonsai’s HDV to DVD page.
A lot of people reported good results with that workflow (I'm in the SD side yet!)
Hope that helps!
Alberto

Similar Messages

Compressing HDV for web distribution

My source material is 1080i HDV captured on Sony HD1000 (PAL) camera.
This I've imported into FCP to make a 3 min movie with additional music.
My aim - good quality movie with a small file size
My best result after countless attempts is 22MB, up to 800kbps, with 640 x 360 dimensions following suggestions (below) to get me into the general ballpark.
http://www.larryjordan.biz/articles/bkcompresshdv.html
This I did from Final Cut: File>Export>Using Quicktime Conversion - the only thing I changed from suggestions in link was to increase data rate, 300 kbps produced poor results for me.
I've tried the different presets (and with numerous adjustments) in Compressor 3.5 but so far I've not managed satisfactory results. (From Download, QT7 Folder)
So wondered if anybody had any suggestions to produce good quality movies with a small file size from HDV 1080i source?

Thanks for reply
I edited in HDV 1080/50
I've tried sending directly to Compressor but when I submit any H.264 preset I get a 'failed' message.
I've tried sample editing with a Quicktime Movie of around 600MB in Compressor - it works with this - but with unsatisfactory results (so far)
As I said my best result was to bypass compressor and go with QuickTime Conversion.
I suppose by 'small' I'm wondering if 22MB/800kbps/640x360 (3 mins) is still quite large if, for eg, the movie is delivered to a client web site - I haven't got that far yet.
I didn't actually use the term 'good looking' but not surprisingly I'm concerned with retaining as much quality as possible with such file size reduction - not sure how else to define this. I'm relatively happy with the quality at 22MB - I've just done a series of test shots so far but in future will use a tripod, manual focus and limited or no transitions to hopefully aid the compression process.

Compressing HDV for youtube

Hello,
I am wondering if anyone has any experience with compressing original 1080i HDV video for youtube. What compression gives the best results?
Thank you,
Cheers

This may help: http://www.kenstone.net/fcphomepage/you_tube_reduxgary.html
-DH

Compress 33GB for 1 DVD DL?

I have a 2hr. 40min. program I would like to place on 1 DL DVD. When I rendered it out I did a Microsoft DV AVI and it's 33GB. Is there a better compression to get this to fit?
My back-up plan is to burn it directly to the DVD out of my edit bay but I won't be able to add a nice menu slection to this. Plus I want to have 2 menu's and add a 3 minute piece to the same DVD.
If we can not do this, besides having the millions of dollars, how are movie houses placing movies over 2 hrs. on DVD's at high quality?
The only other topic on here about this said they got 5 hrs. on one single layer at VHS quality, but I don't want that.
Thank you,
Tony

Tony,
Glad that it worked for you. Now, tell us a bit more about the black arrows in my menu... Where did your menu come from - one of the templates in Encore? If they were pre-built menus, the chances are very good that they are forward and back Buttons as and their graphics are arrows and appear in the Menu as Layer Sets in the Photoshop PSD file. These, if not needed, can be selected, either in the Menu Design Panel, or in Photoshop (use right-click on Menu and then Edit in Photoshop, provided that you have it). Otherwise you can Select each and simply hit Delete for their Layer Set, which includes all the functions for them to be Buttons. Now, before you Delete them, make sure that you do not NEED forward and back Buttons.
Happy authoring,
Hunt

Compression settings for making DVD in FCE

I'm sure this question must have been answered many times - but I can't seem to find anything...
I want to make DVD from FCE - I ususally make a Quick time file from QT conversion - but what settings are teh correct ones for DVD?
The project is in a mix of clips in 1920x1080 and 720x575 and the QT file I made with these settings: H264 - size: 1920x1080 looks good when played on teh computer, but when burned to a DVD with iDVD, it jumps in the DVD player .
When I make a QT file (not QT conversion), it sqeezes the dimensions down to 4:3
Any suggestions?

towanda62 wrote:
... but when burned to a DVD with iDVD, it jumps in the DVD player .
for usage with iDVD, no 'Conversion' needed, the dvd-authoring app will convert anyhow. 'Export QT movie' should do it. too much 'intermediates' doesn't add any value in DVD-making.
'jumping' usually indicates a) too high burn speed, b) 'dirty' player- or burner-head, c) 'wrong' brand of dvd-r (Verbatim has an excellent track-record here), don't use no-names.

Best compression HDV to SD dvd??

Basically i have HDV1080i60 footage at its native format and i need to produce the best quality video on an SD dvd. Which preset should i use??
Oh also, my footage is 16:9 and when i compress using a dvd preset out of Compressor, it automatically formats (letterboxes itself). Now when i bring 16:9 .mov into dvd studio, it fills the 4:3 frame. How can i set this in compressor so that its always letterboxed? Or should i export out of fcp already letterboxed in a 4:3 frame?
Not sure whats best.... fast response would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1507620&tstart=0
Be careful of cross posting

Audio and video compression preferences for export to DVDSP

Hi,
I have a few questions here. The first is regarding the internal use of compressor by DVD Studio Pro. It is my understanding from (limited experience with) past projects that quicktime movie files are automatically compressed to an mpeg2 format when imported into DVDSP. To what extent do I have control over the level of compression, and are the default mpegs that were made optimal quality? Where can I check this?
My second question is regarding compression of audio files. Whereas my video files were automatically compressed, I am not so sure about the audio. I was forced to compress the audio down to Dolby2 separately using the external compressor program, in order not to exceed the bitrate on my last project. Was this just a question of one or the other (video/audio) needing further compression than the default amount, or is there more to this issue?
I live and work with video in Europe, where I have recently been told that optimal audio is mp3? 4? rather than Dolby 5.1? Is this correct, and how much more space does dolby 5.1 take than dolby2? How significant an issue is this when making dvd's for musicians?
Lastly, can someone recommend the best quality audio-video compression solution for a dvd containing approx 40 minutes of audio and video footage for use in europe?? or explain how I might go about finding this out for myself?
Thanks a lot, and I look forward to reading your comments.
4 x 2.5 GHz PowerPC G5 Mac OS X (10.4.6) 8 GB DDR2 SDRam
4 x 2.5 GHz PowerPC G5 Mac OS X (10.4.6) 8 GB DDR2 SDRam

It is my understanding from (limited experience with) past projects that quicktime movie files are automatically compressed to an mpeg2 format when imported into DVDSP. To what extent do I have control over the level of compression, and are the default mpegs that were made optimal quality? Where can I check this?
Settings for DVDSP's internal encoder can be adjusted in DVDSP preferences. Press Command-, - that's the Apply and the comma keys - to bring those up, then select the Encoder tab. In your case, make sure you adjust the settings for SD DVD (and not HD-DVD). You will also be able to specify whether to encode in the background (basically, as soon as you import your file) or encode on build, at the bottom of that tab.
I was forced to compress the audio down to Dolby2 separately using the external compressor program, in order not to exceed the bitrate on my last project. Was this just a question of one or the other (video/audio) needing further compression than the default amount, or is there more to this issue?
I can't confess to have read any of your previous threads, but if you exceeded bit rate, that is a common reason to need to use Dolby compression for your audio. (unless you can afford to recompress your video files)
That is, if you video files use a high bit rate (say over 6 Mbps average), then it's usually necessity to use Dolby compression to make sure that all your footage fits on a single disc. (this is a simplification, of course, but I think you get the idea)
Or was there more to this question that I'm missing?
I live and work with video in Europe, where I have recently been told that optimal audio is mp3? 4? rather than Dolby 5.1? Is this correct, and how much more space does dolby 5.1 take than dolby2? How significant an issue is this when making dvd's for musicians?
Someone was mistaken when they told you that DVDs accept - let alone are optimized for - mp3 or mp4 files. That's flat out wrong.
As for the difference between Dolby 5.1 vs 2.0, that depends on your encoding rates. Typically, most folks encoder Dolby 2.0 at 192 kbps, with some choosing to up the bit rate to 224 kbps. Beyond 224 kbps, you're not actually improving audio quality for a 2.0 mix, you're just bloating your file size. When it comes to 5.1 audio, it's typical to encode your audio at 384 or 448 kbps.
When it comes to compressed audio vs uncompressed audio, it does matter when you're making DVDs for musicians. But that means that you'll probably need to lower the bit rate on your video files.
Lastly, can someone recommend the best quality audio-video compression solution for a dvd containing approx 40 minutes of audio and video footage for use in europe??
If you want to keep you audio as AIFF files, set your encode to 2 Pass VBR Best, with an Average bit rate of 5.0 Mbps and a Max bit rate of 7.0 Mbps. If you need things to happen a bit faster, use One Pass (not One Pass VBR) and use 5.5 Mbps as your bit rate.
If you want to have a firm grasp over how all these numbers work, there is a section at the back of DVDSP manual, that explains how to calculate bit rates (what we call bit budgeting in the business). Give that a quick once-over if you can.

Best settings for older dvd players

anyone have any recommendations on bit rate or other compression settings for older dvd players? everything i produce plays fine on my personal dvd player that actually says dvd-r on the front, but i continuously have problems with clients players having pixel issues of freezing up. i've tried lower bit rates and such but i'd rather not go into all the different angles and just see what you guys say.
I can't be the only person out there that has clients with cheapo players!
thanks in advance.

I don't think you are going to find a single solution to this problem. Just about every DVD player is going to have problems with some brands or types of recordable DVDs. Some things to consider or try:
1.) Educate your customers about potential DVD media problems. Potentially tricky since not everyone will freely admit or accept that such problems exist.
2.) Burn the DVD at the lowest possible rate (burn at 1X rather than 4X, etc.).
3.) Try a different brand of DVD-R.
4.) In special cases consider using DVD-RW rather than DVD-R (some older players will actually work better with DVD-RW).
5.) Consider using the best possible DVD recorder (I'd recommend Plextor drives mated with Roxio's Toast software).
6.) Use a commercial DVD mastering service (only practical if you want to duplicate several hundred discs -- too costly for small runs).

HDV orginial video compress for SD DVD steps, I need

I read some on this forum and not sure what I suppose to do to compress from FCP to SD DVD. Can you tell me what is the steps on compressor. It will be show on theatre screen (not hollywood type).
FCP compression setting?
Compressor setting?

You could try duplicating that 90 minute preset so you can make a few adjustments. One of the settings I modify in my m2v presets is in the Frame Controls: Resizing Control: Deinterlace. I have that set to Better or Best, depending on the video. I also set the Output Fields: to Progressive. This seems to work well for my DVDs even when down converting from HD.

Exporting an Apple ProRes before compressing for SD-DVD or Blu-ray (or AVCH

Hello,
this is my question:
does exporting a sequence to an Apple ProRes Self Contained file helps to gain quality when compressing for SD-DVD or Blu-ray (or AVCH disc)?

Thanks for answering, Tom.
Let me try again, though. (Also, just thinking about the footage, forgetting about effects, titles, etc.)
Do you think that this applies to DV-NTSC and HDV sequences?
I've compared a DV-NTSC sequence exported out using:
DV-NTSC compression and one -using Apple ProRes.
They do look different. Wouldn't you agree to this?
What about HDV,
- is it erroneous to think that (when capturing) by transcoding to AIC or ProRes you are gaining some quality?
- or if you already capture HDV natively, it doesn't make a difference to export an ApplePro Res version to make a SD-DVD from?
I am concerned with this, because I shot once some HDV footage at night with a Sony Camera, going to a hard drive, and when I transcoded the files from the hard drive to use in FCP, (using MPEG streamclip) I noticed a relevant difference in how much the noise was noticeable on the HDV compressed files vs. the apple ProRes compressed files.
Have you ever seen these differences?
Thanks!!!

Compressing Video for DVD Burn Makes Text Look jagged

Hello,
I'm currently at the final steps of a lengthy video production project and am struggling to make the text elements of my finished video display correctly after compression prior to burning it to DVD.
I create and produce music for a living and don't have nearly as much experience with video editing. I'm a bit new to all of this and am using FCE 4.0.1 to create my video & Compressor and DVD Studio Pro 2 to compress and author video for DVD.
*My main issue is this:*
I'm using an imported still image as the title card for my film. It's a mixture of large plain Helvetica Neu font text with some additional stylized lettering created in Photoshop (which is why I'm not using FCE's built-in text generators for the title card). The typography isn't very wild and crazy, it's basically big bold letters and a few gentle curves. I exported the image (1200x600) from Photoshop as a .png and imported it into FCE.
When I export my finished video file (.png title card and all) out of FCE, I export it as a raw uncompressed Quicktime file:
Apple Intermediate Codec 1440x1080i
29.97 fps
Pixel Aspect Ratio: HD (1440x1080) (Anamorphic not checked).
Field Dominance: Upper (Odd).
(It displays in quicktime at 1920x1080 though.)
After initially exporting from FCE, the title card image and all the other text in my movie created from FCE's built-in text generators look fine. It's only after I compress the finished movie in DVD Studio Pro or Compressor that I get jagged looking edges on the curves of my letters, primarily the title card image (the text generated by FCE's generators holds up okay).
In compressor I'm using the "MPEG-2 6.2 Mbps 2-pass settings for DVD" preset and in DVD Studio Pro. Using '2 pass VBR', 'Best' motion tracking, 'best' and 'highest quality' on all the compression settings I can find. I'm encoding at a total rate of 6.5Mb/sec max and 6Mb/sec average. These are standards for compressing to DVD and since I'm preparing a master for reproduction, I've been told I shouldn't increase the data rate over this or I'll run into player compatibility issues down the line.
Any ideas on how I can make this text image last through the compression process and still look clean and crisp without having to increase the data rate of compression? I'm going to play with different file formats for now, but it that doesn't work I don't know where to go from there.
Thank you for any help insights you can provide.

I started with a variety of HD raw footage (most of it gathered on Canon 5D Mkii SLR Digital camera in the form of: H.624 1920x1080) but converted all my raw footage prior to editing into:
Apple Intermediate Codec 1440x1080i
29.97 fps
Pixel Aspect Ratio: HD (1440x1080) (Anamorphic not checked).
Field Dominance: Upper (Odd).
I edited everything in Final Cut Express 4.0.1 using the AVCHD Apple Intermediate Codec 1440x1080i60 at 29.97 fps sequence preset.
When I finished editing all my video I exported it as a raw uncompressed quicktime file which is also:
Apple Intermediate Codec 1440x1080i
29.97 fps
Pixel Aspect Ratio: HD (1440x1080) (Anamorphic not checked).
Field Dominance: Upper (Odd).
But when played in quicktime this finished video displays at 1920x1080, which I'm happy with. (I'm assuming this is the proper behavior of Apple Intermediate Codec? It seemed to take 1920x1080 footage, converted it to 1440x1080, and then spit it back out as 1920x1080 after the whole editing process.)
But seeing as how my issue is with an image file I'm creating in Photoshop and importing into my video sequence, I don't quite understand how the rest of my footage would really effect it. I've made sure to create the image using the same dimensions and pixel aspect ratio as my sequence frames by using one of the standard Photoshop screen templates (HD widescreen 1440x1080). I save my title card image as a non-interlaced .png file and import it into FCE.
When I place the imported image on the timeline, FCE doesn't resize it because it matches the frame dimensions of the sequence. When I view the image at 100% in FCE's viewer all of the image's lines, curves, and shapes display properly as they appear in my original photoshop file.
But for some reason FCE treats this imported .png image file as a 'rendered proxy.' So while it looks fine in FCE prior to rendering and exporting, when I export the video sequence containing this newly imported title card image, the resulting uncompressed quicktime file contains jagged horizontal lines across some of the characters in the title card image. It almost looks as if there's some interlacing issue going on.
However after much experimentation and trial and error I landed on a custom compression setting in Compressor that seemed to take care of this issue. I did as you recommended and selected a high quality 7.5 Mbps encoding preset (7.5 Mbps max/6.4 Mbps average), but noticed a 2 pass VBR rendered better results. What really seemed to do the trick was adding a deinterlace filter to the compression preset, and that miraculously seemed to eliminate the jagged lines in my title card image, restoring it to its original appearance (at least during my initial inspection in Compressor's preview mode).
After letting Compressor crank away, I looked at the finished compressed video in quicktime and the jagged interlaced-looking lines in my title card image have returned. Compressor's preview was somehow misguided.
Now my plan is to burn this compressed video to a DVD and view it on a TV to see if maybe these jagged lines in the final compressed version are only being caused by viewing on my computer's monitor. I'm hoping this is the case, otherwise I'm at a loss of what to do next.
If you need any more details please let me know. Otherwise I hope this is enough to give you a better idea of what issues I'm dealing with.
Thanks again for your insights.

Compressor 3: Compressing to M2V for a DVD creates a shaky look to my entire video.

This is a Compressor 3 issue I'm trying to compress a M2V for a DVD but it keeps creating a shaky look to my entire video. I have done this multiple times, but what is new to this FCP project is text zooming in, Canon 7D footage, and light rays layered on top of my video and text. I have looked up this issue on creative cow with no luck. I've tried single pass and double pass, still leaves me with shaky footage. I need this project to be done for a client and I can't explain why it isn't working.

Do this in two passes. First resize your video from HD to SD. Then import your SD into compressor. All DVD footage is 720x480 for NTSC and 720x576 for PAL. You want to create anamorphic SD video to handle the widescreen. One of the easiest ways to debug your DVDs is to rip them back before burning them to disk. In DVD Studio Pro use the format option instead of burn. This will create a VIDEO_TS folder on your hard drive which you can then read using software. Rip the video back from the DVD with DVDxDV or another professional DVD ripper that can output video in Quicktime ProRes. Import your video into Final Cut Pro, and play it back. When you get the encoding right, go ahead and burn the DVD in DVD SP.

Does HDV improve SD/DVD quality

Hallo,
I want to switch to HDV for personal use only, but can't affort to buy a HDV camera and big HD television at the same time. So I have to decide wich one to buy first. So there are some questions maybe someone can answer.
So far I have been recording DV 4:3 PAL with a Canon MVX2i and a Panasonic GS400 and I have been happy with the results. Last year I have made some recordings in 16:9 but in my opinion the quality with both cameras is not very good, esspecially with shots where the camera is not really stable. The picture seem to fall apart a little. I do realize the pixels are streched and with the same amount of pixels it can't have the same quality as 4:3. But on (cable) television there is sometimes a broadcast that doesn't seem to have this "falling apart" effect ( a lot do ) while it uses the same mpeg (720x540) stream as the others.
So my first question: If I buy one of the cheap Canon or Sony HDV cameras and shoot HDV 16:9 footage, edit as HDV and convert it straight to mpeg2 for a regular DVD with compressor, would this give me a noticable quality improvement compared to DV 16:9 to DVD? It doesn't have to be more sharp but does it give a more solid picture?
Second question: Does above workflow decreases the effect of those bend, moving lines you see on for instant brick walls while the camera is moving slightly, because of the lines of the chips and the wall interferance?
Third and last question: Somewhere (I can't find it anymore) in this forum I read something about more artifacts around moving objects in HDV like in low rate mpeg compared to DV. Is this true?
Thank you for your respons.

So my first question: If I buy one of the cheap Canon
or Sony HDV cameras and shoot HDV 16:9 footage, edit
as HDV and convert it straight to mpeg2 for a regular
DVD with compressor, would this give me a noticable
quality improvement compared to DV 16:9 to DVD?
Absolutely not, assuming you are comparing good quality cameras of either format. HDV has a noisier compression scheme, and you will also lose definition (compared to starting SD) when you scale the HDV down for the DVD.
You will get somewhat more definition horizontally with HDV compared to anamorphic SD, but only if the SD is displayed anamorphically rather than letterbox. I think you would notice other problems before you would notice this improvement.
It doesn't have to be more sharp but does it give a more
solid picture?
No. Again look at the quality of your SD camera.
Second question: Does above workflow decreases the
effect of those bend, moving lines you see on for
instant brick walls while the camera is moving
slightly, because of the lines of the chips and the
wall interferance?
It would tend to increase that effect, which again with a decent camera is almost non-existent.
Third and last question: Somewhere (I can't find it
anymore) in this forum I read something about more
artifacts around moving objects in HDV like in low
rate mpeg compared to DV. Is this true?
Yes, HDV has motion artifacts from interframe compression, and DV doesn't. DV does have compression artifacts but all compression occurs within each frame.
If you do go HDV, be sure you understand the effect it will have on your ability to capture, edit, to monitor, to work with any particular camera or flavor of HDV. It is never a simple out-of-the-box solution and often requires more $$ than one thought.
Don't get me wrong here: HDV has lots of promise and can be very useful and improve quality in many situations. But for SD-only output it isn't going to help and will most likely hurt.

Best way to downconvert from HD to SD for SD DVD... Help...

Ok gentlemen... I'm some tens of hours into this frustration and have hardly any hair left to pull out.
I'm building a main menu for SD DVD in DVDSP.
The entire menu is a quick time file with all graphics and text included, set as back ground in DVDSP, with the buttons drawn over the top.
So Im in FCP building this video for the background of my main menu. It is a composite of video, some motion graphics, live type some and Photoshop stills.
Im building for SD however I want the menus to appear 16x9 and since most of my footage is HDV 1080i I built everything in 1080i thinking I could down convert after.
my first out put was HDV 1080i60 which is native... what I have been editing and compositing in through out. It looks fine.
I run this 1080i Qt through compressor multiple times trying to convert to DV NTSC 4x3. 720x480 3x2... I try every combination I can think of... crop dont crop letter box, anamorphic... everytime my resulting QT is either distorted or degraded beyond acceptability. the text has fallen apart the video is fuzzy etc. All I want to do is Down convert to SD!
So I bring the original 1080i output back into FCP because I don't want it to have to re-render this monster every-time I out-put. It looks exactly the same when viewed from FCP. I try to do the same thing with QT conversion... same problem.
So next I tried to do it in FCP by simply creating a new sequence with the desired dv settings and making the size conversions and re-rendering. same deal.
I went back to DVDSP and Attempted to create an HD project... new project ... modify the project and general prefrences. I cannot import the original HDV 1080i video output as an asset. the message reads incompatible format.
Question is :
Can anyone recommend to me the method, the format, and the program to convert HDV1080i60 to what ever SD format DVDSP will haphazardly accept... please... anybody.
I realize that some of you would like to know what the specs are on this vast multitude of useless dv QT's that I have produced. unfortunately I do not have the energy to produce such post. J/K I will be glad to supply whatever data i have failed to list here if it will help some on to help me. Ask away...

If your final output is SD, I would set the camcorder to downconvert to DV and capture the footage as DV. Then you don't need to worry about the whole HD->SD thing anymore and things will happen much faster.
Also, if you're creating an asset that will be rendered by DVDSP into a menu by adding buttons, etc, I wouldn't compress it to .m2v prior to importing into DVDSP. The reason is you'd be compressing (i.e. throwing out information) and then adding your buttons and then letting DVDSP recompress the menu again and throw out even more information leading to poorer quality.
Finally, you mentioned your source footage is 16:9 and you want 16:9 menus. Why did you convert to 4:3?

*** HDV to SD DVD

I've been following the post below for a while now in order to take HDV footage to a SD DVD more quickly but I'm running into problems. The post basically calls to create a DVCPRO 50 anamorphic sequence, and drop the HDV sequence into it (nest it). Sometimes this works, but sometimes the HDV sequence I'm dropping in doesn't resize itself like it's supposed to. It is really inconsistent. Just exporting from the timeline directly to compressor to make DVDs is quality I'm happing with, but it takes about 60 hours to convert a 1 hour film. Can anyone either explain why this may be happening and/or pass along some links to a better (and faster) workflow for going from HDV to SD DVD?
For FYI, here is the post I am referring to:
My new HDV to SD workflow is as follows:
Capture and edit Native HDV in FCP 5.0.4 or later.
Create a DV50 timeline (DVCPRO 50) 4:3 or 16:9 (Anamorphic)
Set the Field Dominance to Upper (Odd)
Set the Video Processing - Motion Filtering Quality to Fastest (Linear)
Drop the HDV onto the DV50 timeline, it will scale / letterbox correctly, you can alter the scale and pan it to your liking on the DV50 timeline.
Export the DV50 as a quicktime movie.
This will be fairly quick, because there are no filters required for the field dominance upper, as it matches the HDV - we will let compressor switch the fields instead. However, because of this, firewire preview will have the wrong interlacing, and appear jerky on movement. You can DV (DV25) preview DV50 rendered timelines, it seems to convert on the fly.
Drop the exported DV50 movie into compressor.
Don't add any conversion settings yet, click on the DV50 line, and bring up the inspector window, change the Native Field Dominance to be Upper - same as was in the timeline.
Now add some DVD conversions, match 16:9 conversions with DV50 Anamorphic movies, and 4:3 with regular DV50. Use the 2 pass setting. Because we set the Native Field Dominance to Upper, the MPEG-2 videos will have their Field Dominance set to Top First - this is correct.
Submit.
Timings: (1 min 56 sec timeline) on 1.5 GHz G4
Save DV50 from timeline 10 to 11 minutes
Create 2 pass MPEG-2 from DV50 - 30 minutes
Total time, for 1 min 56 sec of HDV to DVD, 40 minutes on 1.5GHz G4
Previous time, going from the timeline via compressor was 68 minutes.
Create DVD's from those assets, they seem to be the best quality possible in the fastest turnaround time, and using DV50 as an intermediate seems to remove the darkening problems of None, has a colour-space that matches the final MPEG - unlike DV (DV25), and does not require too much HD space. It also creates the MPEG quite quickly too, because the DV50 decode is pretty fast.
If this set-up works for you, and improves things over what you are currently doing, let me know. If it does not, let me know why not! If you think there is a better quality method, share it!
Now, over to you guys, I need some feedback and some advice from the pro's:
With the Upper (Odd) / Top First Field Dominance, from FCP through to Compressor, a lot of time is saved when making the DV50 movie, because it does not need a shift fields filter, BUT, will there be problems with a MPEG-2 that has Top First field dominance on certain DVD players ? It seems to work on the players I have tested. It is possible to do the Lower (Even), Shift Fields +1 filter and Bottom First MPEG workflow, but it is quite a bit slower, although it does preview over firewire on DV properly. Any thoughts from someone who knows this stuff better than me - is the end result the same, or am I relying on the DVD player handling the MPEG properly ?
All thoughts welcome.
Some other updates:
I had a lower quality export of a HDV sequence, to an HDV quicktime movie. I have tried all evening to track it down, and post, definitively what it was, but I am at a loss. I can't reproduce it. I thought it was to do with conformed vs. un-conformed timelines, but they now seem to produce the same result.
Well, this is interesting anyway, Choosing Sequence -> Render All -> Both (and make sure everything is ticked), you will get a long Conforming HDV Video step. Now Print to Video won't repeat the (first) Conform, and happens quicker, and exporting the movie happens a lot faster too. Make sure you have filled any gaps with slugs, gaps will slow things down, even after the conform.
Timings:
1 min 56 sec timeline, about 14 cuts only HDV edits, just a rough cut.
1.5GHz Powerbook G4.
Save HDV from unconformed timeline: 10 minutes
Conform Timeline: 8 minutes
Save HDV from conformed timeline: 1 minute
Weird, huh ? Why doesn't it just conform, then export ?
PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.4) Z1U
The prob

I've followed Bonsai's instructions to create DVDs from HDV footage from this link:
http://www3.telus.net/bonsai/Welcome.html
But my current problem is that when I drop my HDV sequence into the DV50 timeline, it doesn't resize and scale at all.
Here's a photo of my canvas for reference:
http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w27/bcpatters/canvas.jpg
Does anyone know why this is happening and how I can solve it?

Compressing HDV for SD DVD

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