Prepping for Professional DVD replication

I am prepping my FCP movie for DVD authoring and I was wondering if the capability of Compressor is equal to that of the software a professional duplication house would be using the encode video?

You can get very good results from Compressor, more so when you have good footage going in. The professional houses have many many dollars of expensive equipment and often high end source to begin with, so it is a bit of an unfair comparison
That being said, between Compressor, bitVice, Digigami and CinemaCraft there are real good options on the Mac side of things that are affordable and which would do a very good job, and often people would not notice, other than pixel peeper types (generally) The difference is really going to be more from the fact of the source. Also, usually replication is used for professionals(?)
I guess it comes down to what you are considering professional in terms of results. (Not trying to be flippant on that one, just is a term that is hard to nail down without benchmarks.)

Similar Messages

  • When delivering for professional DVDs, should files always be progressive?

    Is it understood that every Quicktime file that you deliver to a professional DVD authoring house should be progressive? Or do I need to ask? Or do some DVD authoring houses make DVDs from interlaced files.
    A house I delivered to didn´t bother to tell me that they waned progressive files, because they thought it was so obvious that everybody used progressive.
    The program I delivered was 100 per cent made from dv footage, so therefore I would have to deinterlace my self. Is the interpolation in the deinterlace filter in FCP any good? could it be compared to the interpolation filter in Photoshop.

    "Professional" is meaningless around here. Your duplication house was correct but your client wasn't. You needed to know what the delivery format was BEFORE you started the job. A progressive DVD is usually meant for display on computers only. Anything that is meant to be viewed on a television/video monitor is—usually—output to DVD interlaced, unless, of course, you're going for that film look.
    Progressive and interlaced have other uses, too.
    bogiesan

  • Searching For Professional DVD Creator Software

    Our iDVD is kicking out the disc one minute prior to burn completion.
    Is anyone familiar with this issue or have any suggestions?
    Much appreciated.

    Write the output file to a disk image and burn in Disk Utility.
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  • Is there no professional DVD program running on Mavericks?

    DVD studio Pro and Adobe Encore is not working on Mavericks.
    You can't no longer install a Power PC program on Mavericks, therefor DVD studio Pro is out.
    Right now you cant do a professional DVD with a Mac running on Mavericks?
    Why have Apple stopped develope DVDSP?
    Do anyone know any other program for making professional DVDs on Mavericks?

    "Adobe Encore CS6 works on Mavericks - which version are you using?"
    I use Adobe Encore CS6 and it's not working on Mavericks. And it's not working for most, se Adobe forums.
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    "My DVD Studio Pro 4 (Part of Final Cut Studio) works fine in Mavericks"
    If you try to make a project you will notice there is many features not working.
    My problem is that I cant install it on my MBPr with Mavericks. Impossible to open a Power PC software on Mavericks.

  • Highest peak rates for replicated DVD-9 or DVD-5?

    Which is the highest peak rate that is most commonly used for replicated discs for all the data streams, and for video? I've tested some well authored popular mass production music dvds with DGIndex and often found video peak rates to go over 8.5 or even 9.
    Still quite often it's said for example here http://www.createspace.com/Special/AuthoringNightmares/03/BitsAndBytes.jsp?cfxwasredirect ed=true
    that for replicated discs you shouldn't go over 8Mbps rates for video.
    I'm having one subtitle track and, 2.0 Dolby Digital and 5.1 Dolby Digital audio tracks in my project, but if the spec says the peak limit for all the assets in DVD-video is around 10Mbps, 9.8Mbps (as I think Neil referred in his alternate bit budgeting guide: http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.3bb7dccd ) or as 9.6 (as I think Neil referred in: http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.3bc2e248/0 ) why the video peak rate needs to be that much under what would be possible to be used with subtitles, 2.0 and 5.1 audios? There is like 0.448 Mbps for 5.1audio, 0.256Mbps for 2.0audio, 0.04 Mbps for subtitle, it would leave at least 8.5 Mbps for video? So, it is a little bit confusing what really is the usable DVD peak for replicated DVDs (DVD-5 or DVD-9)? Is it ok in my project to use 8.6Mbps for video if it fits the 9.6Mbps or what ever is the exact scope?

    HI David - if going to replication on DLT then you can max out the bit rate if you wish to... however you need to think about whether you need to.
    There is a law of diminishing returns here - anything above about 8mbps and I doubt anyone except a well trained 'eye' could see any difference in the quality. All you'll be doing is increasing the file size. Also, it's worth remembering that there are still players which have trouble reading higher rates off a replicated disc (check the DVD FAQ - section 1.41 makes for interesting reading, although not all of these are down to high bit rates, of course).
    I tend to encode at various rates with short samples of material and look for the differences. Where I can't see any, I opt for the lower rate. So far this has served me well!
    Don't forget that a duplicated disc is using a very different material for the reflective layer and it is far less reflective than a replicated disc. This is largely why you need to keep the duplicated disc bit rate low - players struggle to read the higher bit rates from the less reflective surface and so stutter on playback.
    Personally, if you can't see any difference between 7mbps and 9.8mbps I'd advise staying at 7. If there is a difference for your footage then try again with 8mbps, but don't be lulled into a false sense of security over the fact that a replicated disc should be able to have 10.08mbps combined bitrate... the quality of the player is really the issue. Whilst most will, some won't, though all should!

  • Best Practices for Professional video editing

    Hi
    I'd like to know your thoughts on what the most proffessional / effeciant method for editing are. At the moment, I archive all the footage from a DV tape through iMovie (I just find iMovie easier for doing this) save / archive all the imported segments of clips I need, name them, then import them into FCP
    When I finish an edit I export and uncompressed Quicktime movie, then back up the entire project on an external drive
    Is this good practise, Should I export the final edit to tape?
    I've just started out as a video-maker as a paid proffession and I'd like to know the most 'by the book' methods
    THanks
    G5 Dual   Mac OS X (10.4.8)  

    Sounds to me that you're doing a whole lot of extra steps using i-movie as your import. You're going to lose some of FCP best media features by not digitizing with FCP. Batch Capture in FCP isn't hard to learn.
    I wouldn't say there's any "rulebook" for professional editors. We all work a little differently but here are some of my "best practices"
    Always clearly name and label all of the tapes that you are using in a fashion that makes sense to you. When I cut a large project I may have multiple tapes. If I lose a piece of media accidentally, it's easier to go back and re-digitize if I have organized the project early in.
    Clearly label bins and use them wisely. For example, on a small project I might have a "video" bin, a "music" bin and a "graphics" bin. This saves searching through one large bin.
    On larger projects, I try to think ahead to how I will edit and make bins accordingly. For example I might have bins as follows, interviews, b-roll location a, b-roll location b and so on. Then I'll have music bins, animation bins and still graphic bins. I generally try to save all to one hard drive which saves me looking through three or four drives. This isn't always possible depending upon the size of the project.
    As for back-up. Lots of peope buy harddrives for each project and then store them until they need them next. Of course, keep all of your raw-footage and you can always re-digitize.
    When I'm done with a project I save the completed project to tape...this is for dubs and library. I save the FCP information on a DVD and I burn the media from the drive, because I can't afford multiple hard drives. I would rather re-digitize my raw if I need to re-do the project in the future.
    That's how I do it, but other editors have other methods. I would highly suggest digitizing in FCP and not i-movie, but that's entirely up to you. You're not doing anything "wrong."
    G4 Dual Processor   Mac OS X (10.4.1)  
    G4 Dual Processor   Mac OS X (10.4.1)  

  • Best Process for making DVD slideshows w/iDVD

    Hasn't someone made a Sticky about this yet??
    I just perused the forum for this answer and it seems the user "Shippley" has provided the most help in this area. I'm hoping they can help in this case. For making a dvd slideshow using ONLY iMovie, iPhoto and or iDVD what process has been determined to provide the best visual quality on playback in a DVD player?
    I've read that for best results in putting a slideshow onto a DVD is to make the slideshow in iPhoto or iMovie first, and then send it on to iDVD.
    But I need more information, and in one location-
    Should the iPhoto/iMovie slideshow be WITHOUT any transitions for best quality?
    In iPhoto, should we organize our slideshow in an Event then Share > Send to iDVD for best results, or is there a better way?
    Does iMovie HD (6.0.4) or iMovie '08 (7.1.4) make a difference in quality? Otherwise I want the easiest.
    When the iMovie slideshow is being sent to iDVD, should we use Share>Export Movie for the best quality when sending to iDVD? Or is there another/better way?
    My photo's are scanned from slides and are small file sizes, if they were large (like from a digital camera) do I have to resize them for optimum DVD viewing?
    What about the settings for widescreen or standard, either one better?
    iDVD encoding, Best/High/Professional, which one for best clarity?
    Like most other infrequent DVD makers, I do not want a fancy slideshow, I don't care if it has transitions if it means I can have better clarity in the DVD player. I have old slides that I simply want to burn to a DVD.
    Thanks for your help!
    Sandy

    Here is a quote from a post of F Shippley on March 8, 2010 that I am referring to. Bengt, you also responded to this post. The post is titled "poor picture quality with DVD slideshow".
    Thus my confusion as to the best practice. I may look into Fotomagico, but like others, I don't want to have to pay for another application that may only be used once or twice a year! Thank you for your responses.
    F Shippley writes, "As I told you in your other message yhread:
    The easiest way to improve the quality of slideshows for use with iDVD is to create them as movies in iPhoto or iMovie! Creating slideshows in iDVD has MANY drawbacks (as you have probably found). It's 'quick and dirty' easy for a few slides, but that's about all I use it for.
    BTW, for PAL DVDs use 768x576 pixel images for standard video and use 1024x576 pixel images for widescreen video. That's all the resolution a DVD supports. "

  • What are the best imovie, mpeg4 settings for making dvds?

    What are the best imovie, mpeg4 settings for making dvds?

    • iMovie'08 to 11
    - Share to Media Browser - AND as Large (or Medium) - HD or other resolutions degrades the final result
    iMovie'08 to 11 are not the tools of choise if quality is important as they all degrade the picture by discarding every second line when going from, Event's to Project's and this can not be mended.
    iMovie HD6 and FinalCut delivers 100% of what any DVD-Authoring program needs.
    • DVD is as standard MAX - intrelaced SD-Video - and can not be any better than this
    • iDVD does only care about TIME / Duration as
    iDVD 08, 09 & 11 has three levels of qualities. (version 7.0.1, 7,0.4 & 7.1.1) and iDVD 6 has the two last ones
    • Professional Quality
    (movies + menus up to 120 min.) - BEST (but not always for short movies e.g. up to 45 minutes in total)
    • Best Performances
    (movies + menus less than 60 min.) - High quality on final DVD (Can be best for short movies)
    • High Quality (in iDVD08 or 09) / Best Quality (in iDVD6)
    (movies + menus up to 120 min.) - slightly lower quality than above
    Menu can take 15 minutes or even more - I use a very simple one with no audio or animation like ”Brushed Metal” in old Themes.
    About double on DL DVDs.
    • iDVD Does Region = Zero (to be played everywhere)
    • Frame rate - DVD can be in two types PAL (25fps) and NTSC (29.97fps)
    If Your material is 30fps then keep to NTSC (29.97fps), if 25fps keep to PAL.
    One can feed iDVD the other frame rate - BUT RESULTING DVD WILL BE BAD
    I use JES_Deinterlacer (free on Internet) to convert all material to the same and final frame rate
    • NTSC - US etc
    • PAL - EU etc
    Yours Bengt W

  • Provide Feedback for the DVD Studio Pro User Manual and Onscreen Help Here

    The Apple documentation team for professional video applications would like to know what you think about the DVD Studio Pro 4 Help documentation (available in the Help menu):
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    • What is missing?
    • Are there any particular examples of other manuals or documentation that you consider to be good models for future editions of the DVD Studio Pro User Manual and onscreen help?
    • By what method do you usually learn a new application? For example: provided tutorials and manuals, third-party tutorials or books, training classes?
    • What do you think is the most difficult feature/concept to grasp in DVD Studio Pro?
    • What's the most frustrating experience you've had with the DVD Studio Pro Help documentation?
    • Do you prefer electronic or print documentation?
    • Are there any other delivery methods or media you think we should explore?
    • What size computer display do you typically use to view the onscreen help? For example: 15-inch, 17-inch, 20-inch, 23-inch, or 30-inch?
    • What resolution is the computer display set to when you view onscreen help? For example: 1024 x 768, 1280 x 854, or 1920 x 1200 pixels?
    • Do you use multiple computer displays?

    • How often do you use the DVD Studio Pro Help
    documentation? Under what circumstances do you use it
    most?
    I'm working with DVSP for 4 months, so everytime I don't know how to do something I use the documentation. As the times passes I almost don't need it so often.
    • How do you find what you're looking for in DVD
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    PDF Search, but I think is not the best way to search because it shows too much useless results.
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    It is powerful and easy to use.
    • What is missing?
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    Today the Connections Tab helps a lot, but I still need to find the button un the menus. With 5 or 4 menus is easy, but sometimes I have 50...
    • Are there any particular examples of other manuals
    or documentation that you consider to be good models
    for future editions of the DVD Studio Pro User Manual
    and onscreen help?
    The OSX help is great!
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    application? For example: provided tutorials and
    manuals, third-party tutorials or books, training
    classes?
    Manuals, third-party tutorials and discussions foruns.
    • What do you think is the most difficult
    feature/concept to grasp in DVD Studio Pro?
    • What's the most frustrating experience you've had
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    • Are there any other delivery methods or media you
    think we should explore?
    • What size computer display do you typically use to
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    17-inch, 20-inch, 23-inch, or 30-inch?
    I use AppleCinema 20
    • What resolution is the computer display set to when
    you view onscreen help? For example: 1024 x 768, 1280
    x 854, or 1920 x 1200 pixels?
    1650x1050
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    No.

  • Online DVD replication/distribution

    I wasn't sure where else to ask this, and I figure since many of you guys have been in this for a while and are probably aware of various delivery options, I'd try posting here.
    I'm a member of several forums, and one of them is putting together a kind of scrapbook project that compiles creative works by members.
    For the graphic/art submissions, the organizer has decided to go with one of those online book-binding services. Basically, you submit all the artwork to them based on their downloadable templates, they print it, bind it and people can order the final product from the website. This site, here, specifically:
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    I've volunteered to help compile a video submission component, and I'll be authoring the DVD as people submit their videos to me (I'm anticipating a lot of videos in need of correction for pixel aspect ratio issues in the near future, lol).
    My question is basically, are there any good online services that are the video/DVD equivalent of the scrapbook/picture book binding service described above? A small-scale (basically to order) replication service that one could submit the ISO of a DVD-Video, discart on some kind of template; and people would be able to order the resultant disc?
    thanks in advance,

    We just finished a dvd replication job for our summer camp video from New Cyberian in San Jose, CA.  I must say the quality was simply fantistic and the customer service was also great.  I got burned from a company in San Francisco that copied our ISO file as data without converting it to DVD-Video and blamed on us without specifying it.  Fortunately the folks at New Cyberian was able to rectify the problem for us in a very short time.
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  • 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.

  • Encode Rates For Replicated DVD

    We're about to send off a master DVD-R to replicate a DVD.
    I've been told, but can't confirm, that I can go sky high on my video encode rates for replicated DVDs.
    That's the opposite of what I've read for duplicating DVDs.
    Any of those out there confirm that I can go to 8 or 9 mbps for an under 1 hour DVD with Dolby2 audio?
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    HI David - if going to replication on DLT then you can max out the bit rate if you wish to... however you need to think about whether you need to.
    There is a law of diminishing returns here - anything above about 8mbps and I doubt anyone except a well trained 'eye' could see any difference in the quality. All you'll be doing is increasing the file size. Also, it's worth remembering that there are still players which have trouble reading higher rates off a replicated disc (check the DVD FAQ - section 1.41 makes for interesting reading, although not all of these are down to high bit rates, of course).
    I tend to encode at various rates with short samples of material and look for the differences. Where I can't see any, I opt for the lower rate. So far this has served me well!
    Don't forget that a duplicated disc is using a very different material for the reflective layer and it is far less reflective than a replicated disc. This is largely why you need to keep the duplicated disc bit rate low - players struggle to read the higher bit rates from the less reflective surface and so stutter on playback.
    Personally, if you can't see any difference between 7mbps and 9.8mbps I'd advise staying at 7. If there is a difference for your footage then try again with 8mbps, but don't be lulled into a false sense of security over the fact that a replicated disc should be able to have 10.08mbps combined bitrate... the quality of the player is really the issue. Whilst most will, some won't, though all should!

  • Unable To Use DVDSP4 Presets for HD-DVD in the H.264 Format

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    Wow...
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  • Satellite A200 - Need driver for CD/DVD drive

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