miniDV to DVD - best production method

I am about to produce a few feature length projects that will be shot on miniDV, for DVD release.

The projects may include some chroma-key work, CGI, slow-motion segments, and a few other "special effects." Within the realm of miniDV we prefer a film-look, more precisely, a 35mm (or good 16mm) film-transferred-to-video look. We currently have a Sony VX2000, and plan to rent 2 additional cameras during the shoot.

What is the best approach to take during production and post?

Is it better to shoot at 60i, 24p, 30p, etc.?

Because of CGI or titling issues, should we edit at 24p?

What is the best output format for conversion to DVD?

I am trying to figure out as many parameters as possible before shooting anything. I expect that there will be some trade-offs, but I'd like to know all of the options at once in order to determine what our compromises might be.

I am very new to this. Any advice would be appreciated.

Wayman :-)

[Rob Lohman]

I would shoot in progressive if possible. That gives you the
best support across the board. Most CGI applications prefer
and take less time when they work in progressive mode. Some
don't even support interlaced. And DVD encoding can be done
progressive (most professional DVD's are) and your DVD player
can play it back without problems. 24p might be ideal. 30p or
25p will also do though.

But with everything try before you buy/make anything!!! Just
shoot some test footage. Edit it a bit and try out the different
things. Ideally would be to even burn some DVD's and test
them out on your players. This is always good practice before
doing anything large or new.

Good luck!

Thanks for the reply Rob.

I have another question. If we shoot 60i with the VX2000, then convert that to 24p, other than the extra processing time, are there any disadvantages to this approach?

I suppose, shooting 24p with the new Panasonic AG-DVX100 would be the best thing, since it can record actual progressive frames at the full frame rate (unlike the VX2000). But, we are trying to keep the budget very low, and want to work with as much of our pre-existing equipment as possible. In fact, the other cameras are also VX's, and can be borrowed from friends.

Also, I read the following in a previous post (see below), and wondered what your thoughts were on this:

POST:
<<<-- Originally posted by donking! : Other than motion blur and rendering time, are there any further advantages/differences to shooting in 24p and playing back on a NTSC monitor (either with a DVD or outputing to 60i on a tape)? does the extra vertical detail translate to the NTSC broadcast at all? -->>>

REPLY:
<<Not really if you intend to stay exclusively in NTSC for your output and you don't care too much for the 24p motion blur then a better choice would be 30p. This is frame/feild compatible with NTSC without pulldown and will get the same increase in resolution as 24p.>>

[Rob Lohman]

Converting 60i -> 24p will probably not look good unless your
using highly professional gear. I would suggest you go with 30p
instead. There are good consumer tools (or semi-prof) out there
that can de-interlace your footage so that you get 30p. Then
just make a 30p DVD out of that. Done.

If you convert to 24p you will probably see lots of problems
and interruptions on (fast) moving camera/objects....

Good luck.

Thanks again Rob,

I'll look for some 30p deinterlacing software.

Also, I noticed in that other thread, that the 30p was suggested for NTSC. What about PAL? I'm not sure if these DVD's will be distributed internationally, but I expect so, and therefore we need to produce something compatible with both. Would it be sensible to shoot 60i, deinterlace a copy to 30p for NTSC, and deinterlace a copy at 25p for PAL? Is that possible?

Wayman L

[Rob Lohman]

Well... there is no general format that can be played everywhere
(in theory). However. Any DVD player I've seen here in Europe
plays back NTSC and usually has support to convert it to PAL as
well (WITHOUT smooth movement and explained above in an
earlier post). Most people also seem to have TV's that support
NTSC playback. All my friends have those. So you should be
fairly safe with an NTSC disc. But if you want to be absolutely
sure you need to have both an NTSC and PAL (25p or 50i at
720x576) version. There are professional conversion houses
out there that can make a much better conversion than you can
(at the moment anyways).

International market is not an easy one..... sorry