dvd and compressor questions

[David Slingerland]

I have some simple dvd and compressor questions
1)why does compressor separate the audio en video files?
2)what should I use to burn it to a dvd, IDVD or DVDSP2?
3)why are the compressed files so small? I would like maximum quality but compressor makes out of my 1.2 gig fcp movie a file of only 250mb
4)the file itself is only 6 minutes long
5)I have a burner that (sony) suposed to be able to burn - and + but DVDSP2 will not burn because I am using + DVD'S
6) I draged a file to DVDSP2 and use the simple menu because I just want to burn and not add anything to it... but it keeps telling me there is no video in the track, but it is there!! I tried all the manuals but I dont get it...

[Rob Lohman]

I'm not a Mac user, but I might be able to help you a bit. I'm not
sure what the "compressor" is you are using, but it must output
DVD compliant mpeg2 (not mpeg1).

Regarding the length (6 minutes), are you sure it is rendering
the complete timeline and not just a/your selection?

Mpeg2 usually has a bitrate between 5 / 9.2 mbit/second. So that's
roughly 1 MB/s. 6 minutes therefor should yield somewhere in
the area of 360 MB at a high setting. MPEG2 is a pretty good
compression and thus it will yield relatively small files!

It is quite normal that an NLE will output seperate video and
audio files when going to DVD. Your authoring package should
be able to re-integrate those without any problems.

[David Slingerland]

Thanks Rob,
Compressor is the program that is suplied with fcp4. It makes everything mpeg2. But I am still wandering about the sony dvd +/- rw I had installed. It is of a make and type most common made by Sony and suitable for mac and pc. It is compatible with IDVD and DVDSP2 but both these programs will only accept - r. Any suggestions?

[Rob Lohman]

I know the burner, a friend of mine has it as well, but he is using
PC and can indeed burn both -R and +R. I'm pretty much at loss.
Just don't know that much about a Mac, sorry.

[John Locke]

David,

If you aren't going to do anything special with your DVD...no special design, special menu, subtitle track, etc...just use iDVD. It's a simple drag-and-drop program that will do a nice job at making a DVD. DVDSP2 is for commercial-grade stuff...meaning all the extra bells and whistles.

As for compressor, I have it but to be honest I haven't used it. I use Cleaner...mainly out of habit.

BUT...I'm wondering why you're compressing a film to put on a DVD? What I always do is simply export the movie from FCP as a "Quicktime Movie", making sure to choose "Uncompressed 10-bit NTSC". After the export is done, just drag that file straight into your iDVD project. Voila!

[David Slingerland]

Oh I will try that, but I heard that IDVD doesnt do such a good job with encoding like DVDSP2. And although I don't want to add anything special I want the quality to be as good as possible. I tried toast 6 and it has an option to burn for dvd but what I burned was not recognized by the dvd-rom player of my computer(it said osx can not read this) and the pioneer dvd player I own(not connected to my computer its just for playing dvd's)
The thing that suprised me most however it that I have the Sony DVD-RW DRU 510A its supposed to be - and+ burner but that both mac programs wont burn +.
Is there a program that will?

[John Locke]

Sorry, David. I can't help you with the hardware/burn issues. I use Apple's super drive and have never had a problem like that.

I can assure you though that I've burned quite a few DVDs with iDVD, without compressing the video first, and no one has complained that they haven't been able to view them.

[David Slingerland]

Yes but my burner is also recognized as a superdrive, it connects well with both programs but the burner is can do - and + rw discs, but the program wants me to put in -rw disk. I thought that having a burner that can do both will give me no problems in the future.

[Jake Russell]

1)why does compressor separate the audio en video files?

Well many dvd authoring apps require this as lots of the time the PCM audio(aif/wav) will be encoded to Dolby Digital AC-3 streams. You get A.Pack with dvdsp which does this. Also you may want to add a different audio or video track to the dvd so if it's separate then life is easy.

2)what should I use to burn it to a dvd, IDVD or DVDSP2?

Depends on your needs. I'd personally say dvdsp but you have to have atleast one menu even if it's not accesed in dvdsp 2.

3)why are the compressed files so small? I would like maximum quality but compressor makes out of my 1.2 gig fcp movie a file of only 250mb

Thats why mpeg-2 became so popular and was used for the dvd spec. You can get great looking footage at low bandwidth/small datarate. So thats normal. I mean on a 4.7GB disc you have 4.37GB to play with and if 6 mins took up 1.2GB of it then you'd only have a few mins to play with on each disc. Like all different formats and codecs the idea is to get as high as quality as poss with as small a file size as poss. Depending on your encoder and original footage of course mpeg-2 does that.

4)the file itself is only 6 minutes long

Yep as I said before, small file size is normal as if it wasn't how many discs would Lord of The Rings have been on.

5)I have a burner that (sony) suposed to be able to burn - and + but DVDSP2 will not burn because I am using + DVD'S

Yep, dvdsp doesn't support +R media as it's not a dvd forum backed media. You can use Roxio Toast to write you're VIDEO_TS & AUDIO_TS folders once the project is built. You'll need to delete the .DS_Store, .layout and VOB_DATA.LAY files from the VIDEO_TS folder if using Toast though.

Also you'll need to use TFDVDEdit or IFOEdit to tweak the region settings from your dvdsp build as they'll be flagged wrong. Regions 7 & 8 will be flagged as 'disabled' even if checked/ticked in dvdsp so when you write with Toast it'll write the disc/DLT with ALL regions flagged in the Lead-in area and this will cause compatibility problems.

I'm waiting for the programmers of TFDVDEdit to get back to me but the work around to all that I've come up with is, you'll need to write to dvd-r out of dvdsp using the build and format option. When you do this it deletes/removes the files mentioned earlier and the region info in flagged correctly. So then if you wish to use Toast for any reason(going to DLT or burning a +R) you can drag the folders off of your dvd-r to your HD and use that.

6) I draged a file to DVDSP2 and use the simple menu because I just want to burn and not add anything to it... but it keeps telling me there is no video in the track, but it is there!! I tried all the manuals but I dont get it...

I'd encode your FCPro ref movie or whatever with Compressor if thats the encoder you want to use. Use 2-pass VBR 60mins HQ setting. Run the aif through A.Pack. Import your m2v and AC-3 into dvdsp.

Drag the m2v onto your track timeline, V1. The audio should be there also, if not drag it over as well. Set the menu up how you want. If you never want to see it you have to set the fist play of the disc to your.m2v, the end jump of your track to your.m2v, the menu & title buttons of your disc & track to your.m2v etc.

Thats quite a lot of info...

Hope it helps a bit though,

Jake

[Jake Russell]

Ok here is an article which may help explain the Region info & Toast part a bit!!!

http://www.lafcpug.org/review_tfdvdedit.html

I only got on the Region issue thing last night as I had other things to play with so I don't think it had come up or been tested till then. But the work around mentioned before is the best I've come up with and doesn't seem to have been shot down in the tfdvdedit forum yet :-)

Jake

[David Slingerland]

thanks Jake, its been really helpfull.. will look in to everything and get back to you as soon as possible!