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Converting from HD to SD for DVD
  • paulvapaulva

    Submitting to Film Festivals and they are accepting SD DVD only.

    What is the best method of conversion, I seem to be losing a lot of quality with what I am doing, but I am a newbie in this.

    I am using Adobe Premiere, thanks

  • 14 Replies sorted by
  • balazerbalazer

    There are several existing topics on this subject. Search.

  • punditpundit

    I wish film festivals would get their shite together. 1080 has been around for how many years?

  • jemjem

    Export an SD version of your timeline. I know nothing about your project codec, res, etc. Prores422 (Mac) / MotionJPEG (Mac or PC) will work fine, throw into DVD Studio Pro / Adobe Encore. Burn with a high quality 2-pass preset.

  • brianlucebrianluce

    Export an SD version of your timeline.

    Depending on your NLE, this may produce mediocre results. For instance, Vegas does a lousy job straight from timeline. TMPGenc is cheap and does a great job. Virtual Dub is good and it's free. Dunno about Macs -- they're kind of commie computers anyhow...

  • actact

    Best solution. Export from timeline at full resolution. Encore will do the compression, but if your movie 24p, you need change Transcoding Settings for this file (right click on clip at Encore bin) Change settings - create new preset 23.976p (progressive!) 720x480 16x9 with desired bitrate CBR - OK. Encore always do recompress to 24p, so don't import SD resolution!

  • 4CardsMan4CardsMan

    @brianluce - Some of us comrades running FCPX export as Apple ProRes 422, convert to DV with MPEG Streamclip, then reimport to FCPX and Share to DVD. We have a secret menu choice to keep the hidden hammer and sickle logo on our Mac's from showing up.

  • nomadnomad

    Premiere scales very well if you have a Mercury Engine capable GPU, but the best scaling I've ever seen in software is from DaVinci Resolve – which is free, but needs a similar card.

  • peaceonearthpeaceonearth

    @nomad is there a difference in quality in scaling from Premiere or Resolve to other applictions?

  • brianlucebrianluce

    @CurtisMack Yeah, I know all about the clandestine Mac workflows. It's obvious you all hate freedom. That's why we plan to bomb you.

  • kavadnikavadni

    It may be wasteful of resources .. but I export at a high bitrate .. that is if the footage was shot at 50Mbits, I export at that .. then I allow either AVID DVD or Adobe Encore to do the transcoding .. make an ISO. I use the 50Mbit file to make everything else .. bluerays, DVDs, youtubes and vimeos .. usually with Adobe Media Encoder .. soemtimes Sorenson Squeeze

  • tinbeotinbeo

    @kavadni Most people in this forums shoot 24p. What is your? Would it make a better final DVD if we shoot at 720p to avoid scaling issues?

  • nomadnomad

    DVD can't carry 720p, it's always SD.

    – You can shoot 1080i60 (or 50) and scale to SD interlaced, which will look like TV.

    – You can shoot 720p60 (or 50), scale and re-interlace, which will look like TV again.

    – You can shoot 24p, scale and leave it like that. The Player will add pulldown if needed, which will resemble films on TV.

  • kavadnikavadni

    @tinbeo I shoot 25P and 50i normally.

    If I shoot at 24P, or I am making a DVD for NTSC, I export from my Avid timeline via Sorenson Squeeze .. which will convert to 30f quite nicely if not to motion intense.

    If there is a lot of motion, then I import the 24P sequence into a 30f project In Avid we then conform (very very nicely) using a feature called 'fluid film'

    I think in generally using your NLE for conforming framerates produces a better result than the standalone encoders .. for me anyway

    In my case both of these processes keep the length of the sequence, and do not require any audio stretching, compression or pitch shifting.

    I haven't tried it but Adobe Media Encoder has the same capabilities as Sorenson Squeeze, in terms of frame rate conversion.

  • alcomposeralcomposer

    Know this is old thread but:

    Sorenson Squeeze uses Main Concept Mpeg2 Converter. Episode also uses the same encoder.

    Main Concept is basically one of the last standing pro encoding packages since Grass Vally stopped selling their solution. There seems to be a LOT of other companies that have also stopped selling their encoder solutions. (which is fine if its still on your PC- but not if you want to purchase new, or more copies)

    You can get Main Concept in Sorenson Squeeze Desktop Standard 10. (which is half price of Episode for MPEG2 encoder).

    Otherwise don't even think of doing interlaced for Mpeg2 delivery. (in PAL land a DVD can have progressive MPEG2 - but will interlace it back into TV live). I haven't found anything else that creates a good looking interlaced MPEG2 stream for DVD.

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