Hello!

My name is Andy, I have just recently entered the editing world and I was wondering what is the best way to get the top quailty for a video. Most of the videos that I do are currently around 2 hours of length however I split it into two parts. I am currently using FCPX but also own FCS7. I don't mean to beg but please can you share with me how you get such amazing quailty. What are you Project Properties, Render Settings, and what else do you do to make it so amazing! Also, I need to create a menu for each video I create and for that I use DVD SP, Currently I export my by going to Share > Send to Compressor and apply the Dolby Digital Professional as well as MPEG-2 for DVD as the settings, I then submit without changing anything else besides the name and destination. Is there a better way to do this? Lastly, I open DVD SP when that is all complete and change the Display mode to 16:9 Letterbox, Resolution is set to 720x480i no matter what I choose and it wont let me change (How do I change to something better? like 1280x720p). What settings do you use on DVD SP to get the top quailty. On July 27, 2012 I created a DVD with a Menu and everything, in DVD SP it looked alright (but not such great quailty which I hope to improve) but when I played it on my TV it looked much worse. All I ask for is help on providing the best quailty I can, any help will be greatly appreciated!

(I'm unable to afford schooling to improve my skills, so my only option to make a living off of this is to search and hope that the internet can educate me.)

Thank you in advance to anyone who takes the time to help me out.

~ Much Love,
Andy K.

Not sure if I really fully understand your question on the quality part. If you mean colour grading, resolution or....?

For one your original footage has to be in good quality. From there you can go down but not up. Enhancing, sure not a issue. But you can't take miniDV that is in SD to and make it in HD. If this is your question?

For your DVD projects, sending it to Compressor and choosing the correct delivery format is the right way to go.

The question fro the resolution in DVD Studio Pro... what is the resolution of the assets that you are importing? Here is link About DVD Studio Pro and HD Resolution DVDs for supported resolution.

Well this help for starters.

I've once used two camera's both with different colored pictures for some reason, I tried my best to match the two, if there is an easy way or tip on how to do good color correction, could you share it?

My settings for a new project ( and the one that was sent to DVD SP and made into a DVD ).

Video:
Format: 1080p HD
Resolution: 1280x1080
Rate: 60p

Audio:
Audio Channels: Stereo
Audio Sample Rate: 48kHz (Honestly, not sure of what this is for)
Render Format: Apple ProRes 422

( Could you please share the best choices for both Video and Audio settings? )

The footage was taken on a Sony HVR-S270U Digital HD video camera recorder. As for Ehancing what do you mean?

For DVD projects I send the completed project from FCPX to Compressor and apply the Dolby Digital Professional and the MPEG-2 for DVD settings. Is there a better choice?

The provived link for the DVD Studio Pro resolution is a great help! The assets that I am importing are 1280x1080, 1080p HD with 60fps.

I would also like to know why the picture looks fuzzy or blurry, for example a womens skirt... It has straight black lines on it but the lines are not solid, the pixels look messed up. Is there a solution to this?

Thank you so much for your time and support in my time of need. Your help is greatly appreciated.

Wow allot of question...

Okay color grading and color correction.
Where the cameras the same model during the shoot and white balance. Check your white balance on your footage. I am assuming this is your first try with color correct? If so you might want to do some research for the basics on the web or check Amazon or your local library for some books. If you are still rocking Final Cut Studio there are some nice book out there that will give you good start.
Color Correction in Final Cut Studio
Final Cut Pro 5 Color Correction
Don't get frustrated at first, coloring is something you do not learn in a week.
But, if you get you footage correct balance (FCP7 here might be easier thanks for the eye dropper) it will be easier to match your footage depending on the situation that is. Here I would need to know more information.

For you footage settings, if I understand this correctly you are sending a 1280x 1080 (interesting format do you mean 1280x720?) to Compressor and dropping the MPEG-2 for DVD Droplet?
If this is the case, the MPEG-2 for DVD Droplet Video Encoder with and height is 720 x 480 in a NTSC CCIR 601/DV aspect ratio. You are using Compressor 4?
Try creating your own Droplet by using Stream Usage Generic and Video Format HD 1920x1080 in the Inspector



The Fuzziness is probably coming from the compression and low resolution.

Oh yeah you might want to look into upgrading to Blu-Ray or checking out DL-DVD's.

I think you may have something mixed up that you need to be clear on.

I'm assuming that your shooting DVCPro HD as it's the only format that does HD at 1280x1080, it records with very wide non square pixels that translate to 1920x1080 square pixels.

But you also say 60p. I'm not 100% but I seem to recall 1280x1080 DVCPro HD doesn't support 60p, just the 960x720 (Panasonic's non square pixel 720p variant). Perhaps you have 60i which is 29.97 fps, or maybe you have your resolution mixed up.

If your shooting DVCPro HD are you 100% on what you have?

Maybe 960x720 at 60fps progressive, or 1280x1080 at 29.97fps interlaced?

Yeah, sorry about the huge ton of questions.

Color Grading and Color Correction I do understand take awhile to perfect and master, so I will be doing some research on the topic elsewhere on the Internet and taking a visit to my local library to see if they have books that can help me out, I will be taking a look at FCP7. The project I'm working on is a party in celebration of one's arrival to the USA. One camera that was used made the picture look Yellow, and the other looked normal but need some darking, I believe.

When I go to the Project Library and check my Project's Properties it shows that my resolution is 1280x1080, rate of 1080p HD, and 60 fps. ( This is the project settings I choose in FCPX before I imported the footage, I'm not sure of the resolution of the original Footage ). Yes, as I send it to compressor I drop in the MPEG-2 for DVD settings as well as the Dolby Digital Professional, and I am using compressor 4 to do this. I created my own Droplet using the options you gave me, as for the Audio do I keep Dolby DP?

Thanks for the Blu-Ray / DL-DVD Tip!

Once again, Thank you for your time and support, you cannot imagine how greatful I am to you.

To capture the footage I am using a Sony HVR-S270U Digital HD video camera recorder. I am not sure of the original Resolution of the Footage. The Resolution and settings that I have (1280x1080, with a 1080p HD Rate, and 60 fps) are all choosen in FCPX when creating a new project, before importing the footage. Am I doing something incorrect and need to look at the original footage's Resolution and rate/fps?

Thank you for the reply!

This is the first thing you need to find out, that project setting is for working with DVCPro HD 1280x1080 footage, if this isn't what your camera is shooting it could easily explain why you don't have a great image quality.

But the fact it's there does suggest that DVCPro HD at 1280x1080 can support 60p, unless there's another format also using that PAR I'm not aware of.

I had quick google search on your camera, on the surface it looks like it doesn't even if the codec does, but you'd do better to get into the manual and find out what it is you have.

Ah hold on, you posted that at the same time as me. All this talking about DVCPro had me with a panasonic camera in my head, which I looked up.

If your shooting sony it's definitely not DVCPro HD and definitely not 1280x1080.

I just had a look, it's an HDV camera, HDV is 1440x1080, but not 60p.

So assuming you've shot HD and not SD set your project Format-1080i, Resolution-1440x1080 & Rate -29.97i

If SD set it to Format-NTSC SD, Resolution-720x480 DV Anamorphic & Rate-29.97

I also just did a google search for my cameras manual because I'm unable to find it.

pro.sony.com/bbsccms/assets/files/micro/...uals/HVRS270U_OM.pdf

If you could just go to the link and scroll down to page 5 (Tablet of Contents) you'll see a heading named "Recording/Playback" on that same page and heading if you look to the bottom you'll see a sub heading called " Changing/checking the settings in your camcorder " underneath that there is three topics but the bottom two are the ones we need to focus on correct? The way I could check what my camera is shooting is by displaying those two options?

.

You want the heading “REC FORMAT” on page 80, this is where you choose between HD and SD.

Also, “SCAN TYPE” on page 81. Where it says “60” it means 60 fields, not frames. I’ve been assuming you had it set to this and that’s where your confusion is.

In an interlaced scan there are 2 sets of scan lines to each frame, 60i is 29.97 interlaced frames per second.

24 will give you 24 true progressive frames per second.

24A will record 24 progressive fps, but will break them up and rearrange them in to a 60i stream for editing at 29.97 interlaced fps with a 24p look/feel.

30 will give you either 30 true fps or it will break them up into a 60i stream, again for editing at 29.97 interlaced fps with a 30p look/feel.

But you’ll only get to the true progressive settings if you have the “SCAN TPE” set to “PROGRESSIVE” and anything you chose will get converted to 60i (29.97 interlaced fps) if set to “INTERLACED”.

This can be seen in the “Notes” on page 81, but how it goes exactly i couldn’t know without seeing he actual camera menu’s. It shouldn’t be too hard to work out.

Hey, I just created a new MPEG-2 with the settings you said but when I compress it and send it to DVD SP I get a warning saying...

Import Assets
Incompatible Format

I've never used DVD SP, sorry. Some DVD Authoring tools such as "Encore" let you put HD video in and it will transcode it to SD for you, others you need to transcode first.

If DVD SP doesn't allow HD input you need to get your video out at 720x480.

If you go "Share" - "Export Using Compressor Settings" - "Disk Burning" - "Mpeg 2 for DVD", I'd imagine DVD SP should be ok with that.

That is the new settings I created to make the footage look better by using compressor but it wont be allowed in DVD SP

Change “Stream Usage” to “SD DVD”, “Video Format” to “NTSC” and “Aspect Ratio” to “16:9”.

Here is a view of the footage that Is in FCPX.. I Exported it from FCPX using H.264 because I cant figure out how to export and share it using compressor settings.

Take a look at the women with the black top and bottom white dress with black strips, her black strips should be soild shouldnt they? Yet it looks all messed up... This is my problem at the moment, How can I fix this and provide the best quailty?

There's no link in your post, but your going to need to backtrack before going any further. You need to find out what settings you camera was at when shooting.