02-21-2008, 01:51 PM

I am about six months into editing a 12 minute short film, my maiden voyage in in Final Cut Pro 6 after dabbling in Final Cut Express for two years. I shot all my material on NTSC DVCPro HD, and I am now trying to find the safest way burn a quick PAL DVD-R of my work-print as a work-in-progress submission to film festivals in Europe.

I have successfully used iDVD to burn work-print copies in NTSC, but I am a bit nervous about relying on iDVD and its 'PAL' preference to submit to a festival in Europe because I don't have any way of previewing the DVD on an PAL player before I ship it to festivals.

As an FCP noob, I am not yet competent in DVD Studio Pro, I just have not had time to learn that application yet. Can anyone advise a way to safely burn a PAL disc in iDVD, from NTSC in FCP?

My best guess: export the movie from FCP as a Quicktime using the DVCPro PAL 48 kHz setting, then import into iDVD with the PAL setting -- does this sound correct? The part I am not sure about is where the standard conversion happens: I am assuming I must output PAL from Final Cut; just setting 'PAL' in iDVD won't hack it?

To anyone who's browsing, I can highly recommend the upgrade from FC Express to FCP. It's an amazing resource. Thanks in advance.

02-21-2008, 02:11 PM

A film festival in Europe - I though PAL was the standard here?

I personally use Toast Titanium to burn DVDs, you can set PAL or NTSC in the prefs

The open source Burn cam also burn both types

http://burn-osx.sourceforge.net/

02-21-2008, 02:19 PM

Thanks, louishen.

Sorry for my confusion -- you are correct, I am trying to go from NTSC to PAL (d'oh!) -- I edited my post. I'll check out your sourceforge link. Much appreciated.

02-23-2008, 08:11 PM

One more issue I am having:

I shot my movie in 16:9 aspect ratio. I've tried exporting various file formats from FCP – DVCPro and DV, regular and anamorphic -- but when I import any of these into my DVD-making program, set for PAL widescreen, they’re not giving me the correct 16:9 aspect ratio.

If I export from FCP using 'current settings,' the aspect ratio works fine, but this brings me back to my original question: will this FCP file, which originated as NTSC DVCPro material, give me a DVD-R that will play reliably on a PAL machine?

02-29-2008, 10:00 PM

Found this iDVD Help document:

<START QUOTE>

Issue

If you export an anamorphic 16:9 DV Sequence from Final Cut Pro with the intention of burning a DVD-Video of that sequence in iDVD, you may need to adjust the aspect ratio of the movie before you include it in your iDVD project. This may be necessary because in some cases, Final Cut Pro does not include the widescreen aspect ratio information that iDVD looks for.

Note: This issue relates specifically to DV format files.

Solution

Use QuickTime Pro (included with Final Cut Pro and Final Cut Studio) to adjust the aspect ratio of the movie so that iDVD will handle it as intended. This won't re-encode your movie, so there will be no generation loss between Final Cut Pro and iDVD. Only the displayed aspect ratio will be changed.

After you have exported the movie from Final Cut Pro, open it in QuickTime Player.
If the movie is displayed at 16:9 widescreen in QuickTime Player, there's no need to continue these steps. iDVD will treat the movie as widescreen.
If the movie is displayed in QuickTime Player at 4:3 or 3:2 (not widescreen), continue with the steps below.
Choose Window > Show Movie Properties.
In the Properties window, click Video Track in the Name column.
Click the Visual Settings button.
Deselect the checkbox for Preserve Aspect Ratio.
Change the Scaled Size:
For NTSC, enter 853 x 480.
For PAL, enter 1024 x 576.
Now the movie should be displayed at a 16:9 aspect ratio.
Choose File > Save to save the movie.
Now you're ready to create a widescreen iDVD project that will handle the movie as intended.

<END QUOTE>

Finally made it work, fitting a PAL video, a DV file made in Compressor out of Final Cut into iDVD with correct 16:9 aspect ratio... but I still don't know if it is really PAL, because it plays okay on my DVD player, which normally will not play PAL. My advice, after all of this: submit an NTSC backup to any European film festival that is willing to take one.

03-02-2008, 12:42 AM

Originally Posted by dogplant

Thanks, louishen.

Sorry for my confusion -- you are correct, I am trying to go from NTSC to PAL (d'oh!) -- I edited my post. I'll check out your sourceforge link. Much appreciated.

yeah that's going to look bad. lol

03-03-2008, 11:23 AM

Sorry, tweekskratch, not sure what you mean, but FYI, sourceforge did not work for me, so I struggled on (see my Feb. 29 post, above) and made it work in iDVD.