Hello I was wondering what format to save my video to that I edited in final cut pro so that my video will fit on a 4.7gb dvd. Without looking like crap. It is an hour and 3 minutes.

Thanks,
Charlie

Hi Charlie,

Hello I was wondering what format to save my video to that I edited in final cut pro so that my video will fit on a 4.7gb dvd. Without looking like crap. It is an hour and 3 minutes

To create a DVD that will play on a set top dvd player you or the authoring application needs to create an mpeg2 video file (extension is m2v) and an ac3 audio file. I don't have iDVD installed so I can't help you there, but its easy to export your file from final cut pro and import it into idvd for authoring. If you have DVDStudioPro I'd suggest exporting from the Final Cut Pro timeline to Compressor and then importing that into DVDSP. iDVD may be the better way to go for you as the learning curve is much less than DVDSP.

A few resources:

http://www.dc.umich.edu/groundworks/Docs/video/exportFCP_to_iDVD.pdf
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=iDVD/6.0/en/22.html

iDVD looks at the length of the movie and gives you two options: anything up to an hour use Best Performance. Up to 2 hours use Best Quality ... that includes themes, menu music etc. Best Performance gives you on average better quality because of the Variable Bit Rate but if you can't trim your movie, Best Quality should still do a fine job with that length

The other option, as stated, is DVD Studio Pro. You can use Compressor and select a pre-set based on time but with something that short you can import your QT movie right into DVD Studio Pro and do the compressing right there. It may take a bit more manual tweaking.

for one hour, constant 6000kbps will get you what you want with enough headroom for menus etc

6-8 variable kbs will give you top master top notch video quality for approx 80 mins on a single layer dvd.

Menus are highly overated, IMO. I don't use them at all -- I'd rather spend that allotted time getting the video right.

menus take 6 minutes to compile and render (the menu media) and less than 5 to create with working buttons etc etc

theyre tedious, but they dont take long

reason i mentioned 6 constant, is due to the fact that the MPG irrespective of how long it is, wont always be the same size.
Considering the motion and GOP commands and IBP profiling, the mpg stream itself is adaptive in turn, will always changed based on contrast and motion

6mbp is a safe number to accomodate these fluctuations

you can run at 7000, get a bitrate calculator. you can find one @ videohelp.com