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I recently bought final cut express and have suffered getting a good quality SD DVD out through the workflow from my cannon XHA1. On screen its fine but when i authour through imovie the quality is poor.
So reading the varrious threads it would seem that i need to use Pro res and the ingress codec... But cant find this option in express
Question is. Is pro res codec avialiable in express and if not can someone suggest the optimum set up for HD capture to SD DVD output
Many thanks

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Hi there,

I'll have to double check to see what codecs come with Final Cut Express but to be honest, I'm not sure this is necessarily going to help.

What format are you recording in on your camera? For example, recording and importing as HDV and then converting it to Apple Pro Res.... might make your video file Pro Res format, but won't make it Pro Res quality. An analogy of that would be that you can take a video or audio file from You Tube.... but converting it in to Pro Res won't make it look any nicer.

If, however, you are bringing in HDV or SD footage for that matter and are going to be applying lots of effects and manipulating the image in other ways, then rendering to a higher bit rate (Pro Res) will get you better results. But the quality of your end product will always be dependent on the quality of original capture.

Cheers,

j

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Thanks for the post
I am capturing in HDV, to be honest quality of the video on teh MAC durring edditing is fine, its when i burn to DVD and look at it on a Tv. The quality is just not there even for a SD DVD. I guess i am looking at how to get a good quality output to teh DVD given that i am recording HD at the ingress, i appreciate that its never going to be HD quality out but i was expecting comparable if not better that when captured and burn SD footage
Thanks

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Kia Ora, bien venue... and no probs.... I might also clarify that Apple Pro res is a good efficient form of HD to work and edit on, so from that point of view, it is also good to work with. There is some information on it in another post on the forum that links to the official Apple blurb about it which is worth a read.

As for final product quality, it is important to also clarify that HDV is not HD. It has the same data rate as SD footage, just that it is heavily compressed and down sampled in a different way to SD footage.

That said, you mentioned you are happy with the quality of it within Final Cut so..... what are your export options? What is your workflow to get your final footage on to DVD? Do you use Compressor or let iDVD/ DVD Studio Pro do the down convert process for you? Are you single pass or multipass compressing. Give as much info as possible and that will help us all to ascertain what the issues could be.

Cheers,

j

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Thanks for your support here.
I am editing in the timeline in the 1080i format from the camera them exporting to QuickTime movie, from here i am letting IDVD do the down compression for the final DVD. (I am using Final cut express rather than fcp so don’t have the compressor option)
In addition i have tried the process below, to try and get better results, which gives a slight improvement but still not what i would class as good.


Edit HDV in the timeline. Then create a new DV-PAL (NTSC) Anamorphic sequence. Copy edited HDV/AIC to the new sequence.
Do not alter anything. Render the sequence .
. Then File>Export>QuickTime Movie (Not Self-contained).

However, if you use the QT Movie in iDVD you will get a squashed 4:3 movie, so then make QT stretch it out to its proper 16:9 dimensions like this:-

a. Open the exported movie file in the QT Pro player.
b. Go to Window>Show Movie Properties.
c. Select the "Video Track" and in the "Visual Settings" panel uncheck "Preserve Aspect Ratio".
d. In the "Scaled Size" box set the width to 1024 pixels for PAL.
e. The "Video Track" will have turned grey, so click it to make it blue again.
f. The opened movie file will jump to 16:9.
g. Close it with the red button and click Save.


Suggestions welcome, should i upgrade to FCP? and will this give me more options in terms of increasing the quality.
Would Toast give me more options to down scale the HDV to SD?

Any other guidance appreciated

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Hello mate,

sorry for the tardy response.

The first option you gave wasn't too bad actually, the only thing I would say is that you can change iDVD's preferences to give you a widescreen project.

I would recommend one of two things.

1. Import footage as DV (PAL or NTSC - depending on what you want the end format to be) and then export as current sequence settings. This can be done from the camera so that the camera itself down converts out of the DV cable for you. iDVD can then be used as a 16:9 anamorphic project.

2. Import as HDV as you are doing and edit in HDV. Export as HDV and then open a 16:9 iDVD project and leave iDVD to down convert.

Actually, there is a third option and that would involve using something like MPEGSTREAM CLIP to convert your bits and pieces for you.

FCP will give you more options but you'd still be working with HDV so not any more helpful.

Cheers,

j

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Holala FinalCut Express it is a semi pro app and the rest iMovie and IDvd kid stuff, so you have to do the best of your movie in FCE.
First with your Canon shoot in 720p instead 1080i this way it will be easier when you will downconvert. In FCE do all your editing and when you are ready , export it with QuickTime conversion, go to DV codec. You will never get a Pro finish because Imovie or iDvd dont work with MPEG2 but because you do all conversion in FCE this will help a lot to upgrade your quality
PS I use the same Canon cam and with FinalCutStudio astonishing result and with the new upgrade yeah we go Blu-Ray

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Aloribi,

you just made my morning. I had completely overlooked the new Blu Ray support in Final Cut Studio. Nice! Now all they have to do is start shipping some computers with built in Blu Ray drives!