Hi,

I have a project in fcp shot on HDV. I have used AIC to edit with and have reconnected to the original M2V files - written an HD master. I need to make an SD DVD version of the film, but when allowing DVD studio pro, to conform the HD master in accordance with project settings, I was unsatisfied with the picture quality, especially in low lighting situations pixelation was an issue. In one case the low light seemed to flicker like candle light.

Am I doing something wrong here? Should I compress the material from within FCP before taking it into DVD studio pro? If so with what settings? Should I use the HDV timeline rather than full HD? Progressive versus interlaced scanning an issue?

Please help

Thanks much!

It sounds like you are letting DVDSP do the MPEG encoding for you- which it will do, but there is a much better solution.

After finishing your edit in AIC export the timeline as...

A. a quicktime reference file (good option if drive space is limited)
or
B. as a self-contained quicktime file (basically creates a master QT file but it's big)

Then do your MPEG encoding in Compressor. Import the file and use one of the presets. "90 min best quality" should give you nice results. The result should be an .m2v file. The preset should also create a .ac3 audio file.

Import the .m2v and the .ac3 file into DVDSP and burn.