Exporting from Final Cut - Quick Question

[Absolution_Films]

Hi guys,

Just a quick question, i have recently finished a 1hr long Wedding Video, i want to export it to put it on to DVD.
The video was filmed in HD.

When i export with Apple Intermediate Codec the ffinal version comes out at over 30gb! Obvioulsy i cant fit that on a conventional DVD which is 4.7gb.

My question is what codec should i use with out losing quality but a smaller final file?

 

[chilipie]

AIC is an editing codec and not a delivery one, so it's designed for speed of processing rather than file size. What codec you choose depends on how it's going to be put on a DVD. If it's going to be a data DVD only watchable on a computer, I would suggest an H.264 .mov file; if you want it to play in a DVD player, you'll need to export MPEG-2 video with AC-3 audio - there are plenty of presets in Compressor (which comes with Final Cut Studio) that will give you a good point to start from.

 

[Absolution_Films]

im a cheap skate and only on express! haha

thanks for the info... is it best to export as quicktime mov then compress in mpegstreamclip or do it straight through FCE?

edit: also i dont have mpeg-2 option only mpeg-4

 

[superamazing]

It's best to reencode as few times as possible, since you risk losing quality each time.

MPEG-2 is the format for DVD, although I believe other formats are supported. Perhaps the best option is to use streamclip to convert your 30 gig Apple Intermediate Codec video to MPEG-2.

Does FCE really not do MPEG-2?? How strange... That seems like a serious oversight.

 

[Absolution_Films]

yeah unless i am being pretty thick, i couldnt find mpeg-2 in the export list.... unless it goes under a different name?

Also just to let people know, i actually tried a little experiment and used iDVD, i just put my 30gb file straight into iDVD and clicked burn and sat back and saw what happened, iDVD actually coped with the file and put it onto a 4.7gb disc with minimal quality loss.