Should I use Compressor to Encode for DVDs?

Hello,

I've always just exported movies on FCP as QT movies. Then if I needed to make it smaller, I'd use QT time change the file sizes and all, otherwise I'd just click and drag the export to DVD SP or iDVD.

I'm wondering though, can I get a higher quality export if I use Compressor? Or (what I'm trying now) if I put the exported video into Compressor and use "DVD: Best Quality 90 minute" settings.

I'm really new to this whole Compressor program, and basically, I'm just wondering if it can help me get a higher quality video for DVD's or if the way I've been doing it is fine.

Any advice is always greatly appreciated!

Out of FCP, I export to a QT movie with "Current Settings".
I don't see an option to change the codec settings when I export as a QT movie.

I only use QT to export if I want to make it a smaller file size for the web. Otherwise, I just click & drag the FCP exported file to DVD SP or iDVD.

Peel said:

Yeah, you'll get a lot higher quality is you choose Export -> Using Compressor. Then in compressor, choose DVD:Best Quality 90 Minutes (or whatever is the appropriate length). You want to make sure you grab the entire DVD 90 min folder, so that you get both the video and sound portions. This will create two jobs in Compressor (again, video and sound). Make sure you drag both of these files into DVDSP, and you'll be ready to burn a higher quality DVD. You'll also note that the DVDSP process will be a lot faster, as the output from Compressor is exactly what DVDSP needs to burn, and there's no transcoding process to do.

Click to expand...

Thanks! I just tested it out and I can certainly see the difference. First off, the original DVD was about 2.1 GB and now it's 3.1 GB. I can certainly see the difference in quality of the video, primarily when I see things like titles. Before I could see the pixels in the titles and that would irritate me but now it's nice and crisp!

I haven't tried getting the 2 separate files to work in iDVD, but if you have DVD SP, I'd recommend giving that a go. It was intimidating to me at first, but after messing around with it and looking at a few online tutorials, I'm getting the hang of it nicely now.