FCE Ideal Export Settings

[superman666]

I've edited a movie (not HD) in final cut express, and i've always been confused about exporting. I want to export it really high quality, and probably will want to put it into idvd to burn. What settings should i use to make the best possible quality ( i don't care about file size for now ).

Imagine... i'm in independent filmmaker who has just finished his movie (in FCE). What settings would I use for the highest possible quality dvd.

 

[zioxide]

iDVD will do the MPEG2 compression to DVD for you, so in FCE just go to Export > Quicktime Movie. Make sure "Make movie self contained" is checked, and let it export. Then you can load that file in to iDVD.

 

[superman666]

I used export to quicktime video and put it into idvd and burned a disc, and the quality on the tv isn't what i want it. Do i have to go through MPEG2 (i'm kind of stupid at all that...). I just want a more clear video ending up on the dvd.

I filmed using a canon GL2, and i want to export with the highest quality possible

 

[Digital Skunk]

I used export to quicktime video and put it into idvd and burned a disc, and the quality on the tv isn't what i want it. Do i have to go through MPEG2 (i'm kind of stupid at all that...). I just want a more clear video ending up on the dvd.

I filmed using a canon GL2, and i want to export with the highest quality possible

Unfortunately if you shoot the video on a compressed format like Mini DV then what you saw on the TV is about the best quality you will get. I don't know if you can export to uncompressed 8 bit or 10 bit NTSC or PAL but you can give those a try. They helped a little bit once i compressed them to MPEG2 in DVD Studio, but not that much.

Export as QT conversion or as a QT movie and if you have QT Pro then you can export it as a higher quality file, but I pretty sure that won't help that much, may just make your movie a lot softer around the edges.

 

[bigbossbmb]

Do NOT choose Export Using Quicktime Conversion. This will overly compress your video.

You should export as "Quicktime Movie", use the default setting and "make self-contained movie". This should result in a very large file (13GB/hour) and will be regular DV compression (the same you shot with). Take that to iDVD and burn.

If you're still not happy, then you need to ante up and get FCS so you can do a higher bitrate MPEG2 encoding using Compressor and then burn with DVDSP.