DVD Studio pro vs iDVD: DVD Quality?

Do the DVDs made by DVD studio Pro look better than those from iDVD?
I have very good looking HD videos, made in iMovie: which look quite good as QT movies, but quality deteriorates a fair amount when iDVD makes it into a DVD. looking for better DVD product. Will I notice a difference with DVD Studio pro. kinda expensive if doesn't improve quality of final product.
roger

If you use the default compressor built into DVDSP it will probably be very similar to iDVD.
If you buy Final Cut Studio to get DVDSP you will also get an application called Compressor that allows for very high quality HD to DVD compression if you customize the presets.

Similar Messages

  • Quality of DVD Studio Pro vs iDVD

    I have been trying to obtain a DVD output with DVD Studio Pro where moderate speed pans don't jerk. Oddly, I get better results using iDVD. The image in iDVD isn't as sharp, but the quality of movement (pans, tilts) is smoother. My program length is only 20 minutes and I have used compressor to encode outside of DVD SP. The compressor setting was for DVD, 60 mins, best quality. Why is it that a consumer software such as iDVD yields better results in this aspect? What am I doing wrong in DVD SP that results in less than professional results. All input appreciated. Thanks in advance

    Hal MacLean wrote:
    Wow - wikipedia link is a superb article, but a tad geeky...
    That is why I refused to understand it, I am not a geek and no one will convince me otherwise... even if every new application and computer released by Apple is like catnip for me

  • DVD Studio Pro vs iDVD

    I have to make a dvd at work - it's just going to be b-roll video with buttons to select different sections of the video. I'm pretty sure we should be using DVD studio pro but my project manager thinks we should use iDVD since it's free. Can anyone fill me in on the major differences between the two?
    Thanks!

    DVD Studio Pro is worlds more complicated than iDVD, and even though newer versions offer some of the ease-of-use of iDVD, there are many settings you'll have to worry about that just aren't an issue with iDVD. Furthermore, if you're used to AfterEffects, the timeline is probably going to cause you to approach DVD authoring in the same linear fashion as creating video effects, and that will only cause headaches in the future. Most importantly, your Flash/Director experience will probably leave you infinitely frustrated with the limitations of DVD when it comes to creating a "multimedia" interface, because with DVD it's all an illusion. Nothing is loaded into the player beforehand, so everything is a stream, not a routine running on computer hardware that can do several things at once. My best advice is to use iDVD until you need to move forward, or experiment with DVD Studio Pro on your own time until you feel confident enough to do real work with it.
    The biggest point I'm trying to make is, to quote Yoda, "You must unlearn what you have learned."

  • DVD Studio Pro Not Burning DVD's Completely

    Hey guys. So I just got my C2D MBP and am using DVD Studio Pro to burn my completed projects. After 3 different projects, different types of media, as well as multiple attempts...I cannot get it to burn a "completed" "Formatting Finished" DVD. I continue to get error messages either stating "Unknown Drive Error" or it just hangs forever until I Force Quit once it reaches "Writing Lead Out Data" in the burn window.
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    First, welcome to the discussions.
    Without a little more info it may be hard to diagnose.
    Just on the surface it sounds like you are tring to place to much content on a standard 4.7gb disc.
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    4.3 is normally all they will hold.
    Try to repair permissions and run the dsk utility
    http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=607640&#607640
    Don
    If by chance you are trying to run 16X media that may also be the issue.
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  • DVD Studio Pro and Firewire DVD burner

    Hi All,
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    J Silverman
      Mac OS X (10.3.9)  

    Did you author a DVD and now you are trying to burn it by using "build/format"?
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  • Best DVD Studio Pro  "CD or DVD Training"?

    Has anyone purchase any of the DVD Studio Pro training CD's or DVD's in the market? For instance: The VTC or DMTS training DVD's.
    If yes, what's a good training CD or DVD training set?

    Here are the links to the ones I have been looking at:
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    http://www.vtc.com/apple.htm
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    http://www.digitalmediatraining.com/products/dsp4/index.html
    http://www.digitalmediatraining.com/products/fcstudio/index.html
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  • Apple Pro RES and DVD Studio Pro    for burning DVDS

    I have a FCP file, shot in HD, 5.5 min long, in apple pro res. It needs to be in a format to send to various people to play on a commercial DVD player as well on apple and pc computers. So far I have made a H264, as well as a MPEG 2 on a "-" dvd and both will play only on my mac computer, not on a playstation 3, nor a pc, nor a commercial DVD player. What should I do?

    so sorry I sounded curt....must be the heat.
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    I need them to be in a format that I can send to people who may be using a pc, mac or commericial DVD player.
    It's very nice of you to reply....

  • Compression quality: iDVD vs DVD Studio Pro vs others?

    I am merrily editing along in FCE, and looking to eventually compress and burn onto DVD. Since I can use all the quality I can get, and don't have spare money (so what else is new?), I am wondering about the differences in compressing software. Is there a visible difference in the final product using DVD Studio Pro vs iDVD? Is there something else out there that is better than iDVD but doesn't cost as much as DVDSP? Any opinions or experience welcomed!
    Thank you!

    If your project is under an hour, iDVD will give you very satisfactory results (use the Best Performance settings).
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    Roxio Toast is a relatively cheap (around 80 bucks Cdn) piece of software that will compress your FC movies. You are way limited in terms of things like menus and chapters but compression wise it does a fairly nice job ... again, you don't have the versatility of iDVD. With Popcorn, it will allow you to cram a big movie onto a single layer DVD but the quality begins to hurt
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  • IDVD vs DVD Studio Pro

    Please help! I've heard talk that it's better to burn DVDs using DVD Studio Pro than iDVD? Is that true?
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    Help!!!!

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  • I'm a bit confused. Since my original camera format was 720/60p, and I converted the footage to Pro Res422 in order to edit in Final Cut Pro 7, should I convert back to a higher quality format before sending the file to DVD Studio Pro?

    I'm a bit confused. Since my original camera format was 720/60p, and I converted the footage to Pro Res422 in order to edit in Final Cut Pro 7, should I convert back to a higher quality format before sending the file to DVD Studio Pro? If so, which Compressor codec is best to use in order to preserve the original 720/60p?   How do I maintain the highest quality?

    No...ProRes is a high quality format. Finishing format.  Many TV networks take that as a final deliverable. 
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    #42 - Quick and dirty way to author a DVD
    Shane's Stock Answer #42 - David Roth Weiss' Secret Quick and Dirty Way to Author a DVD:
    The absolute simplest way to make a DVD using FCP and DVDSP is as follows:
    1. Export a QT movie, either a reference file or self contained using current settings.
    2. Open DVDSP, select the "graphical" tab and you will see two little monitors, one blue, one green.
    3. Select the left blue one and hit delete.
    4. Now, select the green one, right click on it and select the top option "first play".
    5. Now drag your QT from the browser and drop it on top of the green monitor.
    6. Now, for a DVD from an HD source, look to the right side and select the "general tab" in the track editor, and see the Display Mode, and select "16:9 pan-scan."
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    THATS ALL!!!
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  • IDVD Templates in DVD Studio Pro?

    Hey everyone! Just wondering if it's possible to import either a project or template from iDVD into DVD studio pro? Love DVD Studio Pro and would like to use the templates in iDVD in DVD Pro. Thanks...

    http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=385969&tstart=0

  • Buy Final Cut Studio 2 for DVD Studio Pro? Pro & Cons of DVD Studio Pro?

    I am thinking of buying Final Cut Studio 2 because it includes the DVD authoring software DVD Studio Pro. iDVD uses automatic settings that are hard if not impossible to alter and so some DVDs are authored with very poor bit rates.
    1. Is it possible to change the bit rate manually in DVD Studio Pro so the best Quality DVD can be authored?
    2. Is is possible to change the audio from PCM (which takes up a lot of DVD space) to AC-3 in DVD Studio Pro, so picture quality is improved?
    3. Is there a way to buy DVD Studio Pro as a separate software package and use it with Final Cut Express?
    4. Generally what other options for DVD authoring with Mac are there besides iDVD and DVD Studio Pro?
    5. Is DVD Studio Pro a good piece of software or are there any particular faults?

    1. Yes, but you would use Compressor for your encoding instead of DVDSP.
    2. DVDSP will only encode to AIFF, Compressor will allow you to encode audio to AC3.
    3. Negative. DVDSP is only available as part of Final Cut Studio 2.
    4. You could try using Roxio Toast.
    5. DVDSP gets the job done for me. I think it works quite well.
    For a good explanation of how Compressor and DVDSP workflows work within Final Cut Studio, I'd recommend you take a look at DVD StepByStep

  • Slight pixellation on faces at end of DVD after burning in DVD Studio Pro. Can you help?

    I am appealing to those much more expert than myself. I have burned a DVD of my short film in DVD Studio Pro.
    Original file: Apple Pro Res 422 HQ (PAL 25fps)
    I put this into Compressor: Best quality DVD 90 mins.
    Then I imported this in DVD Studio Pro and burned a DVD
    The DVD looks great until the end where the faces start to go pixellated in an outdoor scene every second or so for a second.
    The thing is that this only suddenly started to happen. I had originally done the compression and burned dvds and it all looked fine, but then suddenly when I burned some extra DVDs I noticed this had happened. I recompressed the files, and it had the same problem in exactly the same place. (The original file doesn't have this problem.)
    The thing is that in between I had made a new separate DVD Studio Pro project in NTSC and imported my compressed 29.97fps Apple pro res file of the film. I'm not sure how this would have affected the original PAL project or if this has anything to do with it!
    When I originally burned the PAL DVDs I also did a second version where I exported from FCP a PAL QT of the film 720x576 and then imported this into DVD Studio Pro and let DVD Studio Pro do the rest of the compression. I am trying this again to see if this makes any difference.
    Any advice?

    Hi Christina, thanks for this. I am a bit confused exactly how many and where to put.
    You see the shot in question is a static two shot. It is used several times in the scene, but the only place I have a problem is the final time we see the shot. It is at the end of the shot and over the final 13 seconds, the faces pixellate slightly every now and then for like a frame. How many compression markers should I put in do you think?
    Thanks again for your help.

  • DVD studio pro not playing entire video

    When I use the simulator it only plays a portion of the video, and when I burn it to a DVD it stops at the same point. But both the audio and mpeg2 in the track play all the way through though. What am I doing wrong?

    deadbeatpanda wrote:
    So if the project is corrupt, does that mean I just have to re export my project in FCP? I used quicktime conversion and I read that it isn't recommended for exporting to be burned to DVD. I orginally tried to use compressor to get it to mpeg2 for DVD studio and what not so I compressed it again and the same thing happened. I also tried to use the share option in FCP with the DVD option but it exported for over 10 hours and was stuck at 5 minutes remaining for about the last 3 hours so I just cancelled it. This is the first time I have ever had to burn to DVD so sorry for being such a noob. And I have no menu, the DVD just needs to play automatically.
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    As Michael mentions above, the preferred workflow is "File:  Export:  Quicktime movie (NOT quicktime conversion) with current settings.  Take this file into compressor and apply the appropriate dvd preset."
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    I have little knowledge of the newer output options like Sharing. My experience has been that the things done to "simplify" the work usually compromise quality and frequently don't work well.
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    DVD Studio Pro: Authoring a DVD that plays automatically without a menu

  • FCE 4 And DVD Studio Pro

    What versions of DVD Studio Pro work with FCE 4? My version of FCP has been rendered useless because of upgrading to Leopard, I had to have the iphone! I prefer to stick with DVD Studio Pro over iDVD.
    Thanks in advance!

    Any version of DVDSP will work with FCE4. It's a standalone application, though it's no longer available outside of Final Cut Studio. It comes with Compressor, its own compression application.

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