DVD studio basic questions...

Question

HI!
I have mostly used FCP to make web videos, so making a DVD is new for me. I used iDVD in the past for family videos, but that's about it.
Some basic questions...
1) Does DVD Studio work from different FCP files? Meaning, can I create all the "chapter sections" in my dvd in different FCP files? Is that the best way to do it? Or does it all have to be done in one FCP file with some sort of chapter marker system?
2) Does DVD Studio read from FCP direct or from exported .dv files?
3) Do I have a choice of using FCP or exported .dv files?
I ask these so I know the right way to approach my FCP project.
Also, if it can use .dv files, then I can outsource the authoring of making the DVD to someone else to save me some time. This is harder to do with the FCP files.
FINALLY...
4) When I used iDVD in the past and dvds I buy in the store, all I could get was about 1 hour on a dvd.
With DVD studio, how can you make a longer DVD that can fit more than 1 hour, as I am making a professional product for duplication.
Thanks sooooooooo much for your wisdom..... john

Answer 1

Hi John - in response:
1) yes, it can certainly do so. However, you can also use a single timeline in FCP, set chapter markers and add the DVDSP meta data (click 'm' twice in the FCP timeline to get the chapter marker window, and add the data there). You might also add the markers when in DVDSP - all fairly easy to do. I often use lots of different FCP clips to make a single track in DVDSP - you have to think of a DVDSP timeline very differently to a FCP one... in DVDSP the timeline can hold completely different films and you use chapter markers to help delineate it all. You only need to use a new track in DVDSP if it helps with the overall structure for the disc, or if you've used 99 chapter markers in the first one already.
2) yes, it can. Using a FCP reference file is possible, as is using an exported .dv file. The difference is a matter of preference, largely. I tend to export out of FCP as a QT self-contained file, encode it using compressor to be mpeg2, and then import into DVDSP. You can, of course, go from FCP directly to compressor without making the QT file. The output from compressor is what you are after for DVDSP - you can use QT or .dv files right into DVDSP, but they get compressed to MPEG2 as the disc is built. The encoder in DVDSP is not a particularly refined tool, and Compressor will give you so many more options, including encoding the audio to AC3 (dolby digital) which is a very important thing to do!
3) yes again... see above? You can't use the FCP project files, you certainly can use other file types, but you really ought to use MPEG2 files from Compressor. You'll get a better looking result.
4) yes... this all comes down to the way the footage is encoded (I'm labouring the point, but Compressor is your friend here again). There are lots of ways you can squeeze more onto a standard 4.37Gb disc - it is easy to get 2 hours on if you know what you are doing. This could be an entire thread of it's own, but the basics are that you need to use Dolby Digital audio (AC3) which has a tiny file size but a decent audio sound. This leaves you with more space on your disc for the video. The more you compress the video (use lower bitrates like 3Mbps) the smaller the file will be, and therefore the more footage you can fit onto the disc.
The problem is that lower bitrates can result in lower quality. This is especially true if your footage includes pans, zooms, shimmering water, leaves on trees, fades and so on. You tend to get blocky areas that look poor. Higher bitrates certainly help, but you get larger file sizes and thus can fit less on the disc... it's always a trade off between file size and quality. With iDVD the encoding decisions are taken for you, and you can't control it, but it fortunately does a pretty decent job.
There is no set or enciding rules that will work for every piece of video you have got, however you can go a long way using variable rate encodes (VBR) that have a range from 4 - 7.4Mbps. In order to know whether the resulting file will fit onto your disc you have to do some good old 'bit budgeting'. There are online tools to help you where you type in the length of your footage in minutes, and the size of your DVD capacity, and it tells you what the bitrate needs to be in order to fit the space available. Be careful though - it cannot tell what your footage is, and you have to preview the results yourself to judge if the quality is right.
A tip is to find the 'problem' areas in the footage, make a short (2mins) clip and encode that at different bit rates. When you find one that works well, use that for all of the footage. As long as you use 2 pass (VBR) encodes in Compressor, it will assign lower bitrates to the easier sections, and higher bitrates to the problem areas.
There are many other encoders out there which are better than Compressor - have a look at Cinemacraft on a PC for a start - but you pay a premium for them. They also take a while to learn, but the trick to making a great looking DVD is to use great looking source footage and encode it well before making the DVD. If you encode as part of making the DVD then you've missed the point and you'll get 'average' results at best!