I shoot 720P30 and edit in 720P30.
When all is said and done, I export all of my timelines ( I do weddings so I have a ceremony timeline, reception, Highlights, interviews, etc) into compressor from FCP.
Once I have all5 timelines in Compressor I use the 2 pass 150 minute for the reception, and 90 minute for the rest. I then adjust my VBR to either fit 3 hour items onto a single layer dvd, or adjust up to make the smaller items look better. I have no problems with how they come out. It also only takes roughly 3 hours to export the total of 6 hours of footage for DVD.

I then burn 2 seperate dvds for the clients and I am done. Never had any issues.

Now, If I want to continue to edit while compressing, I export a QT movie 10 bit uncompressed and uncheck the option for make movie sef contained. It just uses the render files for uncontained qt files. Then I can work in FCP while exporting in Comp.

I always make adjustments in C2 for bit rate. If I am only doing a ceremony, and nothing else, I will crank up the VBR to the max for a SD DVD, otherwise HD DVD kicks in at a certain VBR.

Compressor is an amazing tool, one of my favorites. I can do so much with it that other editing programs did not give me.

Compressor Video Preview bad?
 

As a follow-up to my posts
The poor image, stair stepping, jagged edges on detail is not solved as of 5 AM this morning. I spent 2 hours with Apple Tech support last night, one hour with a friend, and an E-mail from the infamous Apple Tech Guru Larry Jordan. Larry feels that the problem of going from HDV to SD in Compressor requires first Scaling the video to SD and then compressing it. I will try that this afternoon. All other attempts have failed. Apple had me remove and delete all related files etc in FCP (which does not exhibit the "jagged edge" syndrome) and do the same thing with Compressor and reinstall Compressor. Did not change a thing. Again trying to fix this has been 6-8 hours per day of real effort...and I am being patient. Someone else must have had this occur as well. I am still looking for a solution. I will keep you all posted even though I am the only one it seems that is having this issue with Compressor.

FCP/Compressor Help! Someone must know about this?
 

Please read my posts regarding this issue. I would really appreciate it if some "pro users" of FCP Compressor would take a moment to read and respond. I se lots of readers of the posts but only a few responses. I have recieved some good ideas but non of them are the right answers. Rather than retyping the entire thing just read the thread. Someone must have encountered this sort of problem. I read the Bonzai step by step. Makes no difference. A glitch in Compressor? I have reinstalled etc.
Thanks

FCP/Motion Quality Solved
 

FCP/Compressor Help...I solved the "jagged edge" problems just by shooting 24P on the Canon A-1 in HDV. No one was ever able to come up with a solution for the jagged edges when shooting 1080/60i HDV so I just shoot at 24P and have not looked back. Hope this helps those who are able to shoot this way.

Hi John.

I emailed you some days ago through dvinfo. Don't know if you received it. I had the EXACT same problem as yours. I'm still trying to find a solution since I don't have a way to shoot 1080 24p. Did you (or anybody) test encoding for DVD with another software, like BitVice, for example?

And if I make a .mov and do the downconversion and DVD encode on a PC? It works?

I just got off the phone with a fellow editor who said he prefers shooting in 24p because that means less compression when making DVD's. He said there's a noticable difference between 24p and 30p.

BTW, I'm seeing the "jagged edge" John described earlier, and I'm shooting 1080p30.

my HUMBLE question is: how this workflow (which is the most obvious today) can simply NOT work with macs?

Dean, what is the actual sensor size (in terms of horizontal lines of pixels) of the camera you are using? Does it really have a genuine 1080 horizontal lines of pixels? Or is it a smaller sensor using "pixel shifting" or "spacial offset technology" to bring it up to 1080p?

Because, if it's the latter, it means that the image might have been subjected to quite a bit of manipulation or stretching before you even loaded it up into FCP and perhaps it starts to fall apart a bit (jagged edge) by the time it's finally put through Compressor 2.3.

But the good news is that Compressor 3 is released next month with features such as "pristine format and standards conversions" (the dictionary defines the word "pristine" as "in its original condition; unspoiled") as well as "gorgeous SD to HD up-conversions" and it can also "convert between progressive and interlaced video".

There's more info from this link:

http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/compressor/

I already know that Compressor 2.3 gives great results with HDV1 (720p) footage, but have noticed from various posts by HDV2 users (1080i) that they've had problems with Compressor 2.3 and have often had to purchase additional software such as BitVice to obtain the results they were after.

So I'll be very interested in any reports by 1080i shooters on whether Compressor 3 fixes those problems for them.

And, finally, I'm glad to see that John has solved his earlier conversion problems. Well done!

Check your QT export settings, make sure they are exporting with "same settings" without recompressing your timeline. Also, uncheck "make movie self contained" so the QT movie uses the original video files.

Try capturing using AIC next time, then export. AIC eliminates the GOP problem and works great with progressive footage.

I've found the only way to take an HDV sequence and make a decent SD DVD is to place that HDV sequence in an SD sequence, making sure in the SD sequence the "sequence"/settings/field dominence is set to "NONE". Then export either to compressor or make a QT movie out of it.

The issue seems to be a problem in the field order going from HD to SD. (Upper field first to lower field first). Not sure why this trips up compressor but it does.

YMMV depending on what versions of these programs you are using.