HD down to SD Epilog...

Hi Ronny & everybody.

Well, have been spening the last few days getting the project out, and for the best part it is all finished. So thanks to everyone that replied and to Ronny.

In the end I had to settle for the compromise - not 100%, but at least it is finished.
I was aware with creating menus and titles within photoshop (Have done that before), but thought I could get away with that!. Guess not. What I did do in the end was create motion menus within FCPX, then export that section seperate to run in the main menu. In the past I have created layered menus in PS, that seemed to work good back then, but she was a bit of a fight to get this project done :).

Still am sure that I produced a better DVD from past projects, but cannot check as I do not have the backups handy.

I have a query in that when I play a commercial film (DVD), that appears perfect. Crystal clear motion, and hi-red menus. So I wonder what they are doing that I am not?.

The only thing I noticed not 100% in my disc was in the scrolling titles - they appear a bit "watery", not sharp as was viewed during the editing. I realise one cannot compare the two, but thought I would be able to get the output better than I did. (Close to a commercial DVD?).

The encoding did not go quite smoothly, I originally used Compressor 4.1.3 with the settings you gave me Ronny, then when I went to import those assets into DVDSP - I got the familiar, "Incompatible format". So I used compressor 4.0.6 with the same settings, and in they went. Go Figure.
I did notice that with compressor 4.1.3 it created files with <.mpeg> extensions. with 4.0.6 I got files with <.m2v> - that may not matter perhaps!.

As mentioned I would love to find out what the big commercial DVD producers are using to author their discs. That would be interesting.

Okay, thanks again,

Pete

Hi Pete,

Happy to hear all turned out well.

The Compressor settings I gave were for Compressor 4.2, which produces .m2v files when you use the DVD preset (see screenshot). Settings have changed a lot with different Compressor versions, so you might have used the wrong preset in 4.1.3. The .mpeg extension is not something you would get from a regular DVD preset.

Why is the quality of a self-produced DVD in most cases lower than that of a commercial DVD? For many different reasons.

To start with, commercial DVDs are mostly created from very high quality video masters (feature film, tv program, high-end events...). The better your source, the less quality you will lose in your end product.

Second, the hardware used to encode commercial DVDs is very high quality (and very expensive). Most of the times the encoding is done in many different passes and it takes a lot of time and tweaking to achieve the best encoding results for every shot or movement. It is not uncommon to divide a master in many different elements and to encode every element with different settings to achieve the best results.

Third, many studios and independent video producers will choose to have two DVDs (or one dual-sided disc) to maintain a higher-quality encode of the main project, with extra bonus features found on the second disc.

All these elements allow for a better end result but they require much more time, budget and encoding skills.

Best wishes,

Ronny