Hello,

I'm shooting mini DV, XL2 in 24P mode. The Apple manual I have doesn't really go into the details of export formats. It says DVC Pro 50 has a 7 MB/sec rate, but that's about it. I'm seeking to export the production and then burn it to DVD. I'm hoping to keep the audio and video quality as high as possible.

Is there a document that shows the details of the different export options and what to expect from them?

Thanks in advance.

Ty Ford

Ty, if you're going to DVD then you'll want to export using your current sequence settings (File>Export>QuickTime Movie and make sure you have "Current Settings" selected) then transcode that file using Compressor or another MPEG-2 encoder. You're not editing in DVCPro 50 if your footage comes from an XL2 - at least you shouldn't be. You're editing in one of the DV25 formats.

There seems to be confusion all the time on this Mac editing board about maintaining the highest quality while editing and exporting. Unless you're doing something special (like bumping your DV footage up to uncompressed SD so you can use the Nattress G Nicer filter) then you just want to keep everything in its native format until the last possible moment. So keep everything in DV until you're ready to encode your final MPEG-2 file to put on your DVD.

Zach nailed it.