HD For Indies

Apple - Support - Final Cut Pro

This PDF explains various workflows using Final Cut Studio.

If you don't know what all the parts of Final Cut Studio are, or how to use them, or even what they are for, this document gives examples of what they are, what they're used for, and how they might be used in a realistic simple production workflow.

Includes neat tricks like:
Embed Motion Content: When this option is selected, Final Cut Pro creates the Motion project as a clip in Final Cut Pro. You can think of that clip as “live” in Final Cut Pro, meaning it updates as it is worked on in Motion. Even while both applications are open, when you examine the Motion clip in Final Cut Pro, you’ll see that the content has been updated with any changes that were saved in Motion.


When you do export from FCP to Motion, it'll carry:
-Media
- Any relevant timing information, such as frame rates and In and Out points
- Markers
- All of the standard motion characteristics, including scale,
position, rotation, composite modes, and opacity, as well as any
linear and smooth keyframing of these parameters

From the docs:

If you choose to import your DVCPRO HD-based QuickTime movie directly into DVD Studio Pro, the embedded MPEG encoder will automatically encode the video using the HD MPEG-2 format.

...but this is less than optimal, since MPEG-2 is so much less efficient than H.264.

Also from the docs:

The HDV format is based on a configuration of the MPEG-2 format that is supported by DVD Studio Pro. This means that if you acquire and edit your video in the HDV format, it does not require transcoding before being used in an HD project. This not only saves time, it reduces the chances of artifacts being introduced into the video during a transcoding process. The ability of Final Cut Pro 5 to natively edit HDV sources makes this workflow an attractive way to create DVD projects using HD assets.

So it appearsHDV will drop seamlessly as is into high def DVD Studio Pro 4projects - it sounds like HDV is already formatted as an MPEG-2 that is acceptable for use in DVD Studio Pro 4. So you don't have to transcode it to anything else, it's ready to get muxed into a disc.

So it also appears that DVD Studio Pro 4 will transcode to MPEG-2 on it's own without discretely having to use Compressor 2.

Apparently, Compressor 2 will DEFINITELY handle 10 bit, 4:2:2 video conversions - this is great! You just have to be sure to enable Frame Controls, otherwise you'll get 8 bit output results. At least enable Automatic in the Frame Controls tab in the Settings in Compressor 2.

Unfortunately, DVD Studio Pro 4 can't import iDVD 5 projects. iDVD 4 projects yes, iDVD 5 no. Drat - since there are some excellent and cool templates in iDVD 5. Why doesn't this work? Previous versions of DVD Studio Pro could open the analagous version of iDVD projects. They were probably in a hurry to get it out the door and that was a feature dropped. Or else they didn't have a graceful solution as to how to handle them HD or SD. Either way, can't import them.

In order to do multi-angle high def DVDs:

When authoring a multi-angle or mixed-angle HD DVD project in DVD Studio Pro 4, the video streams in the track are limited to a combined maximum bit rate of 24 Mbps (this includes the selected video stream plus all audio and subtitle streams). 1080i HDV video uses a bit rate of 25 Mbps, which is higher than the maximum allowable multi-angle bit rate in the HD DVD specification.

It is possible to create a multi-angle project with HDV video if you use 720p HDV video, which uses a bit rate of 19 Mbps, depending on the number and type of audio and subtitle streams you use.


So I was wrong about maximum bitrates for high def DVDs You can encode HD MPEG-2 at up to 29 megabits/sec from Compressor 2, but 24 mbs is the max allowable combined datarate for audio and video in a high def DVD.

It'll be interesting to see how new high def DVD players perform based on this spec. While the max bitrate was 10 megabits/sec for SD DVDs, most discs are authored at 6-7 megabits for video in order to play back reliably on all players - far below the specified limits. Will high def DVD players be any better? Will they perform to spec?

DVD Studio Pro 4 supports additional Digital Theater Systems (DTS) audio formats.

You can now use DTS ES audio that contains up to 6.1 channels, as well as audio that has up to a 96 kHz sample rate and 24-bit sample size. Important: All DTS audio imported into DVD Studio Pro must use the compacted file format (files with a ".cpt" file extension).

Note: All DTS audio files that you import into a DVD Studio Pro project must use at least a 48 kHz sample rate. DTS files with a 44.1 kHz sample rate produce unusable results.

-mike