FCP to DVD Studio Pro exporting help needed - desperatey......

Question

Hi.
Please help me if you can.
I am exporting a Quicktime movie from FCP for DVD Studio Pro 4. I chose the MPEG 4 option in the compression, make it best quality and bounce it. But when I look at the self-contained mov file, every time a person walks across the screen I am getting little lines on the light parts of the screen or a beating or sizzling effect in the dark parts. Basically it looks like everything is "alive" somewhat - objects like curtains seem to sizzle.
Can someone guide me in the proper choices to make when exporting from FCP to import into DVD Studio Pro? There is not an MPEG-2 or M2V option, and the MPEG compression breaks it down to MPEG-2 or M2v upon import into DVD Studio Pro anyway.
I guess I don't know how to get the best quality bounce from FCP, in order to have a file that is less that 4G in size. Can someone please advise?
There are no directions on exporting FOR DVD Studio Pro in the Final Cut books, nor was there a FCP prep covered in the DVD SP books.

Answer 1

Quick workflow from FCP -> DVDSP:
In FCP, File Export QuickTime Movie
Select DVD Studio Pro Markers in the Markers drop-down (leave other settings as is)
Save QT Movie to your preferred location
In DVDSP, import your newly-created QT Movie
(You may want to confirm your encoding settings - both in terms of bit rate and whether
you're encoding on build or have background coding enabled - prior to this step though)
Best Quality workflow:
In FCP, trash the render files for your sequence
From the Menu, File Export Using Compressor
Now, in Compressor, select the appropriate preset(s): DVD: Best Quality 90 Minutes - 4:3
Optional: Delete the AIFF setting completely
Select the appropriate destination(s)
Optional: For the Dolby preset, alter Dialog Normalization (under the Audio tab of the Inspector) to -31. In the Preprocessing tab, alter the Compression Preset to None
Click Submit
Once the encode is done, import the .m2v and .ac3 (and/or .aiff) files into DVDSP
It's only fair to tell you that since this produces (pretty much) the best possible quality from Compressor, it may take as much as 5x-10x as long as the 'quick workflow' detailed earlier. (Especially if you've set DVDSP to do a one-pass encode)