This may be more information than you need, but you might find it helpful:
This guide is to be used to maximize the available space on a DVD-R so your program will looks its best. After running through the guide a few times it will feel like a natural progression of events; FCP for editing, A.Pack for audio compression, QuickTime to determine the bitrate of your file, Compressor to maximize quality, DVDSP to author, DVD Player to test. If you feel more comfortable using a Compressor preset rather than creating a custom preset a lot of what this guide describes will not apply to you.
After setting your completely rendering and setting your chapter markers in FCP:
1.) Open your FCP timeline and Export your audio first as a 48k 16 bit .aif.
2.) Open A.Pack. Select 2/0 (L,R). I use a quality setting of 192kbps. Change no other setting. Drag your .aif file you exported from your FCP project to the 'Left' box and 'Right' box. Click on Encode. It's beneficial to run audio through A.Pack for two reasons: The space taken by A.Pack encoded audio is much smaller, which leaves more space for video, which means a higher bitrate, which means better quality. Also, A.Pack encoded audio, being smaller and operating at a lower bit rate, means that the overall total bitrate for audio and video combined will be lower. This can lead to better compatibility with DVD players that may choke on higher bitrates causing stuttering, freezes and pixelization.
3.) Back in FCP4, again with your timeline open, go to Export > Using QuickTime Conversion > MPEG2. Uncheck Export Audio. Open the Quality tab. For now you can disregard all settings except the Target bitrate. Subtract the A.Pack audio file size from 4.1gb. Use the resulting file size as a guide to set the target bitrate. For example, your a.pack audio file is 200mb, so adjust the target bitrate slider until it says 3.9gb. This will leave you a 200mb cushion for menu data, since the total amount of usable space on a DVD-R is just over 4.3gb. Write down or remember the Target bitrate settings and Cancel your way out of the Export window. (Compressor doesn't show you what the estimated file size will be for any given bitrate, but when encoding through QuickTime you get an estimate.)
* Special note on shorter programs: Never go above a 8mbps Target bitrate. A good setting for anything that won't fill the disc is a Target Bitrate of 6.5 and a Maximum Bitrate of 8.0.
4.) If you'd like to keep editing while Compressor is encoding you should export a reference or self-contained movie with DVDSP Markers attached rather than compress right off the FCP timeline. This allows Compressor to be a standalone app and you can stay productive on another project in FCP while Compressor encodes in the background.
5.) Open Compressor. Drag your FCP self-contained or reference movie into Compressor and select Presets.
6.) You're going to create a new preset. Open the file called 'MPEG-2 90 min High Quality Encode' and select 'MPEG-2 90 min High Quality Encode' from within that file.
7.) Select Encoder > Quality. Set the Target and Max Bit Rate to the settings you determined earlier in QuickTime. The Mode should default to Two pass VBR Best.
8.) The following step is optional, but I consider it mandatory for my programs. Apple's MPEG-2 encoder will raise your black level to 7.5 ire. There is no way to turn that off. It will make the program looked washed out compared to what you've seen in FCP, which sets the black ire at 0. To compensate go to Filters > Gamma Correction and set it to 1.1. To see the difference go to the Batch window, highlight the wedding movie, and select Preview. When you change the Gamma setting to anything but 0 a line will appear in the Preview movie. The left side is before the adjustment, the right side is after. You can move the line across the image to see what effect the change in gamma has. I set it at 1.1, but 1.2 is a little more dramatic. With either setting the blacks and colors are richer, but do a test and view the results on a properly adjusted NTSC monitor to make the sure the blacks aren't crushed and to see if the your project will benefit from a different gamma setting.
9.) In the Preset window click the box with the '+' on it. You're saving your preset. Select MPEG-2 from the menu. You can name the preset what ever you want. That will be your starting point for later projects.
10.) In the Batch window hit the blue box with the small triangles next to it under Preset. Select the preset you just made.
11.) Make sure youve set the Destination to a drive that has enough space for the encoded file.
12.) Hit Submit. On my computer (dual 2gHz G5) a 2 hour program takes less than 4 hours to encode. On a 733mHz G4 it took 23 hours.
A tip on creating :30 dvd menus:
1. Drag and drop a sequence that contains a section you'd like to use for a menu to the Viewer
2. Set in and out points in the Viewer to make a :30 second clip
3. Create a new sequence for that clip and place fades to either black or white at the beginning and end. The color of the fade depends on what DVDSP template youre using.
4. Export that as a self contained movie (video only).
5. Import that movie into DVDSP2
6. Drag and drop the movie on to a menu drop zone.
In DVDSP2:
(This is a very general guide without much detail yet.)
1. Open DVDSP and create a New project
2. Choose a Template
3. Label and place the buttons to match your chapter markers, including one that says Play Movie, or something similar.
4. Before you import any assets save this template as a Custom Template (Templates > Custom > Create). This will be your starting point for future projects that have the same design.
5. Import your assets: Your main .M2V and .AC3 files, your :30 drop zone menu movie(s) and also your :30 section(s) of music for the menu(s).
6. From DVDSP's Assets browser select both your main .m2v and .AC3 files at the same time and drag them to your 'Play Movie' button. A window will pop up. Select 'Select Asset and Create Track' *.
7. Control Click on your other buttons to assign their respective chapter markers: Target > Tracks and Stories > [Name or your .m2v file] > Appropriate Chapter Marker for that button.
8. Save your project.
9. By holding your pointer over the button you will see the button number, the asset it is connected to and the chapter marker that has been assigned. Check that all the chapter markers are correct.
10. Drag and drop your menus and menu audio to the template.
11. Select Simulator. Test your project.
11. Select 'Build'. Make sure there is enough space available on the drive you are sending the file to, which can be as much as 4.38gb. Create a folder for the build.
12. Quit DVDSP and open the DVD Player. (Never have DVDSP and DVD Player open at the same time.)
13. Choose DVD Player > File > Open VIDEO_TS folder and navigate to your new DVDSP build. Select the VIDEO_TS folder. Test your project.
* A special note about the reported size of your completed DVD: DVDSP2s meter that displays how much data your project is going to contain is based on a DVD-R capacity of 4.7gb, not 4.3+gb, which is how your assets are represented outside of DVDSP. The difference is a caused by a mathematical inconsistency in the way data is totaled. So when you add your assets outside of DVDSP youre shooting for a total, with menus and formatting, or 4.38gb, but the meter in DVDSP will top out at 4.7gb. The following link provides more information on this confusing situation:
http://www.wiebetech.com/pressreleases/BillionEqualBillion.pdf
A tip on the benefits of encoding files for projects that still exist on an FCP timeline:
Making the DVD when the project is self-contained or reference movie from a FCP timeline is a very good step towards the overall quality of your DVD. When you Export your project from FCP with DVDSP markers you are including a 'compression' marker at every transition and fade. This tells DVDSP to pay extra attention to these spots when it comes to allocating encoding resources. By taking a project to tape and then bringing it back in you lose all those invisible compression markers that DVDSP uses to create the best possible quality. It is possible to replace those compression markers, should you need to, but this is a tedious process. Ive also read that you can achieve even higher quality if you encode through Compressor as a direct export from the FCP timeline. The reasoning is that you sidestep a codec rendering cycle and go directly from the source footage to MPEG2, but I havent tested this yet to affirm the benefit. This process ties up FCP while the encoding is taking place. Also, some effects, like those created by BorisFX, will not render correctly or at all when going from FCP directly to Compressor.
Gast
