Burning Widescreen DVDs

[grlspggn]

I can't find a way to get Toast 7.0.2 to produce a widescreen dvd from the widescreen (16:9) quicktime movie that I have exported from Final Cut Express 3.0. (The movie is in widescreen when in final Cut Express.)

 

1. How can I get Toast to do that?

 

2. What other software can do it - commercial, freeware or shareware? (Not DVD Studio Pro - its too expensive.)

[grlspggn]

I have solved the problem, and tested it by burning 3 perfect Widescreen (16:9) DVDs, each with a different video edited in Final Cut Express. Here is the way:

 

EXPORTING A WIDESCREEN (16:9) SEQUENCE FROM FINAL CUT EXPRESS AND BURNING IN TOAST TO DVD

 

Remember: You assemble a video in the Timeline and it is those clips (in the currently selected Timeline) that form the exported video, not the clips in the Browser. The Browser is simply a folder listing the constituent clips etc. like any other Mac Folder.

 

1. Assuming that the video was captured from a true Widescreen (16:9) camcorder, in FCE’s Easy Setup, choose DV-PAL Anamorphic

 

2. In the Timeline, select the relevant Sequence.

 

3. Do File > Export > Using QuickTime conversion.

 

4. Under OPTIONS:

 

Movie Settings > Video > Settings: Choose DV-PAL; Frame Rate – Current; (Keyframes is greyed); Quality – Best; Scan Mode – Interlaced; Aspect Ratio - 16:9. (Data Rate is greyed).

 

Movie Settings > Video > Size: Choose Dimensions > Compressor native, 720 x 576; Do not check Preserve aspect ratio using, or Deinterlace Source Video.

 

5. Drag the exported movie into Toast (with default settings) in the usual way and burn. The resulting DVD will display on a 4:3 TV with an aspect ratio of 16:9, not squashed left-to-right, with the usual black bars at top and bottom and a little cropping left and right. However, you may have to set the settings in your DVD player and in your TV to suit (see their manuals). If you are working in NTSC you will choose that instead of PAL, but I have not confirmed that. I have not confirmed results on a Widescreen (16:9) TV.

[grlspggn]

I spoke too soon. My saga can be seen at:

 

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?t...01&tstart=0

 

I have just about given up trying to do something that is as conventional and straightforward as getting out of bed. A real mess.

[grlspggn]

Nothing works! I have carried out exhaustive tests based on your suggestions and another of my own, each test ending in a burned DVD which was displayed on my modern TV which successfully displays broadcast TV video and commercial 16:9 DVD films in 16:9, with black bars at top and bottom and (often) with only a small amount of cropping left and right. PAL, 25 FPS.

 

My aim is to make a 16:9 DVD of an FCE movie with the same characteristics - no jitter, no squishing, just a quality product. Surely it can be done.

 

Test 1:

a.) In FCE, do File > Export > QuickTime Movie. (There are no options here).

b.) In Toast 7.0.2, with all preferences and settings at default, DVD was burned. Toast's tab shows "720 x 576.

Result: Cropped slightly left & right, squished left/tight (people too tall & thin).

 

Test 2:

a.) As Test 1 but the first 4 frames were deleted. (This follows a suggestion of yours).

Result: Same as Test 1.

 

Test 3:

a.) As Test 2 but 16:9 forced in Toast by Preferences > General > "Show Legacy Formats and Settings" is checked; in Toast's left window Encoding > Custom is checked; and on choosing More > Encoding > Aspect Ratio is set to 16:9

Result: As Test 1.

 

Test 4:

a) As Test 1 but myDVDEdit uses as you suggest. I give below your instructions for completeness:

 

"Meanwhile I told my brother how to edit the widescreen flag in the Toast-authored VIDEO_TS folder. The problem is simply an instruction in the IFO file. There is a donation-ware app called MyDVDEdit. Either mount the Toast-authored disc image file or insert your DVD that has the wrong aspect ratio. Now drag the VIDEO_TS folder to your desktop. Select the folder and choose Get Info. Change the permissions to Read and Write and select the option to have that apply to the entire folder contents. Now open MyDVDEdit. Select the VTS 1.1 file in the list on the left and click the IFO tab under the window. There you'll see the Aspect Ration setting. Change it to 16:9 Automatic Letterbox and Pan&Scan. Choose Save. Do the same for any other video titles on the DVD. You can preview it in the window. Exit MyDVDEdit, open Toast and choose DVD video from VIDEO_TS option in the video window. Drag in the edited VIDEO_TS folder and burn your corrected disc."

 

Result: No cropping at all, wide black border at left, right, and top and bottom, squished.

 

Test 5:

a.) In FCE, do File > Export > Using QuickTime Conversion.

b.) In Options > Settings > Size > Use Custom Size: set at 1024 x 576

c.) In the movie Settings d. box, uncheck "Prepare for Fast Internet Streaming".

d.) The resulting QT movie played perfectly on my computer LCD monitor.

e.) In Toast 7.0.2, with all preferences and settings at default, DVD was burned. The images in Toast were 16:9 and its Text tab reported 1020 X 576 (Note: 1020.)

 

Result: 16:9, black bars top and bottom, slight cropping left and right, looks good so far, BUT, jittering as described above earlier in this thread. Useless.

 

Test 6:

As Test 1 but the QT movie was processed by Anamorphaciser and saved as a a new version in QT Pro (as advised on the FCE Apple Discussions forum).

 

Result: As for Test 1

 

I can do no more. It seems that there is some bug in either FCE or Toast or both. I have visited other message boards and there is a huge amount of complaints about the inability to burn 16:9 DVDs, including in the latest version of iDVD. As large corporations don't spend much time listening to individual customers, would it be possible for you to contact Tom Wolsky who is the guru on Apples's FCE forum (I have got advice from him as well) and for both of you, with your double clout, to contact Apple (FCE & iDVD) and Roxio, on the grounds that making a DVD from FCE is hardly rocket science and it seems very clear that something is wrong with either or both and with iDVD. (Tom has advidsed to use DVD Studio Pro, but having paid 270 pounds for FCE and Toast (the latter has no upgrade path from version 6) and for QT Pro, I am not prepared to invest another 300 pounds in the hope of just doing what FCE and Toast should be able to do.

 

Would you be prepared to do that please? The address of the FCE forum (not to be confused with the FCP forum) is;

 

http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=936

 

and my thread there is "Widescreen puzzle" and my login name is SteveKir.

 

Many thanks for your help so far. Much appreciated. (I will be away for a week from Friday morning GMT+1)

 

 

G5/2 Hz, OS 10.3.9, FCE 3.0, Toast 7.0.2,

[tsantee]

Thanks for the detailed info. I'll look into this more, pursue your leads and let you know what I've learned.

[John at Roxio]

Thanks for your post. I am going to turn it into an article for our knowledge base.

[grlspggn]

There is a reply on the FCE forum, but Tom Wolsky believes that DVD Studio Pro works OK. The impression I get is that there is no need for him to take the problem further.

 

Thanks for your interest.

[tsantee]

I spoke too soon. My saga can be seen at:

 

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?t...01&tstart=0

 

I have just about given up trying to do something that is as conventional and straightforward as getting out of bed. A real mess.

Reading through that thread reminds me about an earlier tip I gave you. If you do succeed in exporting a 4:3 video from FCE that is squeezed, then burn it to DVD that way with Toast. Afterward, do the trick with MyDVDEdit to change the IFO's aspect ratio setting from 4:3 to 16:9 Automatic Letterbox and Pan&Scan. That way your video will be the correct aspect ratio regardless of what DVD player or TV it is being played back on.

[tsantee]

There is a reply on the FCE forum, but Tom Wolsky believes that DVD Studio Pro works OK. The impression I get is that there is no need for him to take the problem further.

 

Thanks for your interest.

I've asked my brother to help me with this so I may have some new info soon.

 

Here is some info about 16:9 video on DVDs that you may already know. The video on a PAL DVD is 720X576 fregardless of whether it is full frame or 16:9. When the video is to be played back as 16:9 the space that otherwise would be taken by black bars is used to vertically stretch the picture in the 720x576 frame. On play back the DVD player then widens the picture to 16:9 so that the image appears correctly. This is called anamorphic 16:9.

 

When Toast recognizes a 16:9 source it knows it has to vertically stretch the video and add the 16:9 play back flag to the ISO. Or that can be forced with the 16:9 setting in the custom window. However, what happened in my brother's case is that the picture was vertically stretched and the 16:9 flag wasn't set. So the image he saw on his TV was distorted. Using MyDVDEdit he was able to add the flag and the DVD player corrected the aspect ratio on play back.

 

I just experimented with a 1024x576 PAL widescreen video exported (using MPEG Streamclip) in various QuickTime formats. I also have the 16:9 custom option selected in Toast. The first title in Toast is exported as 720x576 DVC Pro-PAL and it ends up on DVD vertically stretched even though the 16:9 flag is present. The second title is exported 1024x576 and ends up vertically stretched (but not as much). The third title exported using the Apple Intermediate Codec appears correct.

 

So in your Final Cut Quicktime Export, click the Custom button and choose the Apple Intermediate Codec. This may solve the issue.

[grlspggn]

Thanks. My camera (Sony DCR-HC96, a current model) is "True Widescreen") - it has a CCD chip which is physically 16:9. As a result, the camera does not need to process the image to squeeze it to 4:3. I don't have an anamorphic lens. While on holiday I had a thought and the problem is solved. But first, the story.

 

The word "Anamorphic" seems to be used in different ways in the FCE world. Often, it has the same meaning as "Widescreen" and "16:9"; sometimes they are slightly different. I have three documents: two books and the FCE Help. None give much advice on which Easy Setup to choose - "just choose the one for your camera". As mine is true Widescreen, when I started to use FCE about 6 weeks ago, I chose "DV-PAL Anamorphic". This was because my camera shoots in 16:9 = "Anamorphic". "DV-PAL Anamorphic" looks like "DV-PAL Widescreen". Sounds logical.

 

On holiday I wondered what would happen if instead I chose "DV-PAL". This doesn't sound sensible because it doesn't seem to recognise that my camera is 16:9 (ie., Anamorphic). So on return home I reset the Easy Setup to that and re-captured from the camera's miniDV tape some of the clips contained in the troublesome DVD, and the result was that when burned to a DVD in Toast, with all Toast's settings at default, the video displayed correctly on my TV sets. (The two video players are set to 4:3 L which causes them to tell the TVs not to squash the width - that is, to letterbox the image.) The TV screens therefore had the expected black bars top and bottom, and the image was only slightly cropped left and right. What a lot of effort just because of a misunderstanding!

 

At first I thought that I would need to recapture all the clips on my tape with the new setting (DV-PAL), which would have been tedious because of the need to re-edit. However, I used QT Pro to export the QT file (the one used by Toast to burn the DVD), choosing in QT Pro, "Export: Movie to DV Stream", and in options, "PAL", "Interlace" and "Aspect Ratio - Letterebox". "Preserve Aspect Ratio was checked and "Audio" set to "48 KHz". In Toast the two images of the video that it displays were 16:9, and the one in the Edit window also had black bars top and bottom, which I had not seen in Toast before. The resulting DVD displayed on my TV sets correctly, as described above.

[grlspggn]

It works, sort of. The resulting DVD is in 16:9, but now there is a black border around top, bottom, left and right of the image so that frames are smaller than the screen is capable of showing, and the top left and right edge of the image is slightly wavey.

 

The QT movie used by Toast to produce the DVD was created in Final Cut Express (3.0) by File > Export > QuickTime Movie. There are no settings that I can change there. It appears as 4:3 when displayed on my computer LCD monitor, squished left/right.

 

Another bit of info. If, in FCE, I do File > Export > QuickTime Conversion and accept all the defaults, I get a 16:9 DVD with the expected black border top and bottom, but any object in the mid-foreground that moves across the line of sight at quite a slow speed is jittery. The effect seems like (but might not be - I'm only guessing) caused by two adjacent frames appearing at the same time, the later frame appearing just behind the earlier frame. This would only be visible of course when movement "separated" the two frames.

 

Whatever I do I can't get FCE and Toast to produce a quality conventional DVD designed for showing on a TV. It must be possible. I will have to give up making videos if I can't solve this, which is not an unusual task.

 

I have been recommended DVD Studio Pro but it is too expensive.

 

Grateful for any ideas.

 

OS 10.3.9, QT 7.0.4

[tsantee]

Toast is supposed to automatically recognize this. There also is a force 16:9 mode in the Custom Encoder setting window. Let me know if that doesn't work.

[grlspggn]

My brother just sent me this....

 

I find that I have not commented on your brother's tests. I too find that the capture window is 4:3 squeezed horizontally, even when I end up with a successful DVD as described in my last post. Perhaps FCE does not want to stress the speed of the host computer more than is necessary and therefore leaves out the code for unsqueezing. On my G5/2.0 GHz only everey third or so frame is displayed in the capture window.

 

As for the Anamorphic lens and optical anamorphic system tests, there are so many variables that I cannot see a pattern, but the conclusions seem correct. A variable that I have come across is a flag that video editors (and no doubt Toast) sets according to whether the video is 4:3 or 4:3 letterboxed, or true widescreen (16:9).

 

Your brother says:

 

In Final Cut, the term "anamorphic" in no way relates to the use of anamorphic lenses. When shooting with an anamorphic lens one should NOT use the edit system's anamorphic setting.

 

As I mentioned in my last post, I agree with that. The use of "Anamorphic" in the Easy Setup is confusing and lead to my difficulties, because I thought my true 16:9 camera needed the anamorphic setup to tell FCE that it was 16:9.

 

The DVD is looking nice. I have a new Canon IP5200 printer (inexpensive) which can print on printable DVDs. With the printing software in Toast it looks very professional (although I wish it could produce text with the edges of the letters in black. Without that the text is usually difficult to read against any background that is not faint or non-busy).

[tsantee]

I'm glad it is making sense now. Hopefully this series of posts will help others who struggle with this issue.

 

The DVD is looking nice. I have a new Canon IP5200 printer (inexpensive) which can print on printable DVDs. With the printing software in Toast it looks very professional (although I wish it could produce text with the edges of the letters in black. Without that the text is usually difficult to read against any background that is not faint or non-busy).

 

MagicMouse is putting the finishing touches on Discus 4 which hugely improves the design of text on labels. I purchased the pre-release version which I think is up to 4.0M now and I'll receive the final release. Take a look here.

[tsantee]

It works, sort of. The resulting DVD is in 16:9, but now there is a black border around top, bottom, left and right of the image so that frames are smaller than the screen is capable of showing, and the top left and right edge of the image is slightly wavey.

 

The QT movie used by Toast to produce the DVD was created in Final Cut Express (3.0) by File > Export > QuickTime Movie. There are no settings that I can change there. It appears as 4:3 when displayed on my computer LCD monitor, squished left/right.

 

Another bit of info. If, in FCE, I do File > Export > QuickTime Conversion and accept all the defaults, I get a 16:9 DVD with the expected black border top and bottom, but any object in the mid-foreground that moves across the line of sight at quite a slow speed is jittery. The effect seems like (but might not be - I'm only guessing) caused by two adjacent frames appearing at the same time, the later frame appearing just behind the earlier frame. This would only be visible of course when movement "separated" the two frames.

 

Whatever I do I can't get FCE and Toast to produce a quality conventional DVD designed for showing on a TV. It must be possible. I will have to give up making videos if I can't solve this, which is not an unusual task.

 

I have been recommended DVD Studio Pro but it is too expensive.

 

Grateful for any ideas.

 

OS 10.3.9, QT 7.0.4

Actually my brother has had similar issue with widescreen output from FCE and Toast 7. Since I don't have FCE I'm a bit stymied about what is the cause. You might try the FCE discussion group at http://discussions.apple.com to see if there is some solution mentioned there.

 

Meanwhile I told my brother how to edit the widescreen flag in the Toast-authored VIDEO_TS folder. The problem is simply an instruction in the IFO file. There is a donation-ware app called MyDVDEdit. Either mount the Toast-authored disc image file or insert your DVD that has the wrong aspect ratio. Now drag the VIDEO_TS folder to your desktop. Select the folder and choose Get Info. Change the permissions to Read and Write and select the option to have that apply to the entire folder contents. Now open MyDVDEdit. Select the VTS 1.1 file in the list on the left and click the IFO tab under the window. There you'll see the Aspect Ration setting. Change it to 16:9 Automatic Letterbox and Pan&Scan. Choose Save. Do the same for any other video titles on the DVD. You can preview it in the window. Exit MyDVDEdit, open Toast and choose DVD video from VIDEO_TS option in the video window. Drag in the edited VIDEO_TS folder and burn your corrected disc.

 

Let me know if you find the solution to this issue so I can pass it along to my brother. Come to think of it my brother told me recently that he believes the problem is is that the initial frame of the FCE export was a different aspect ratio than the rest of the video. Toast took the cue from the first frame. He edited off a small bit at the start and it worked.

 

As for the jittery picture that is a interlacing problem. Apple has some good support articles explaining the interlacing. What's happening is that Toast is recognizing the video as either upper or lower-frame first but in reality it is the opposite of whichever Toast chose. You can force this setting in the Custom Encoder window. But this also could be about the initial frames of the video being different from the rest.

 

Hopefully this points you to some other things to try. Let me know if anything works.

[grlspggn]

Thanks for the explanation of 16:9 and DVDs. At each step I think I am getting a little closer to understanding this.

 

"So in your Final Cut Quicktime Export, click the Custom button and choose the Apple Intermediate Codec. This may solve the issue."

 

I have just made two DVDs using Toast, with all its settings at default. The video was got from FCE File > Export > Using QT Conversion. I chose Apple Intermediate Codec and on one I left "Interlaced" checked and in the other I unchecked it. Both displayed on TV in widescreen format (black bars at top and bottom and only a little cropped at left/right), but the jitter problem (see earlier in this thread) remained.

 

It is beginning to look as though Exporting from FCE as "QT Movie" does not produce jitters but the image is distorted to make people too tall; and Exporting from FCE as "Using QT Conversion" produces an undistorted image but has jitters. So neither is correct.

 

If only some way could be found to get Toast to produce a DVD with the image from the first method ("QT Movie") displayable unsquished, the problem would be solved.

 

BTW, the movie on Apple's site describing the wonders of iDVD6 shows examples of the DVD videos it produces and all are in 16:9 format, but nowhere does it state that iDVD will produce DVDs with unsquished images on a conventional (non-widescreen) TV. It is tempting to think that that is impossible, except for the advice given on the FCE forum that DVD Studio Pro can do it. I wonder if that is correct. If it is, why can't Toast do it? If it is not correct, than perhaps it is simply impossible to be done by anyone anyhow.

 

Also, a thought. At http://www.apple.com/getamac/ are some fabulous TV adverts for the Mac. They are in widescreen. They can be dowloaded to your hard drive using QT Pro. I haven't time before I leave on holiday to see if Toast could produce a DVD with one of those on it, without any problems. If it could, then there may something wrong with FCE's QTs; if not, then there may be something wrong with Toast.

 

Cheers.

[tsantee]

My brother just sent me this. Please note that he uses the term horizontally-squeezed which is the same thing as when I say vertically stretched. Also, his professional Panasonic camera has an anamorphic lens so he is comparing the results of creating 16:9 video with an anamorphic lens versus turning on a 16:9 setting inside the camcorder. His finding that one should not use the 16:9 setting in FCE when using an anamorphic lens actually makes sense to me. Let me know what you think of his findings and if any of this applies to you.

 

Tom,

 

I do not know it this will help. I have conducted three anamorphic tests using Final Cut Express and Toast. Perhaps somewhere in here it is revealed why there are certain problems. Note: In "Easy Setup" Final Cut has a number of settings for NTSC, PAL, anamorphic, basic etc. In these tests I used NTSC Anamorphic and NTSC Firewire Basic. The other settings did not present appropriate options.

 

 

TEST #l Final Cut Express set on NTSC Anamorphic (Using a camera with a horizontal squeeze anamorphic lens)

 

When set for NTSC Anamorphic the Capture of a lens generated anamorphic clip will show in the Viewer as a correctly letter-boxed 16 x 9 image, but Capture Window shows a horizontally squeezed 4 x 3. Once the capture is completed and the clip is returned back to the Viewer, it then shows as a horizontally squeezed 4 x 3 filling the frame. When placing that video on the Time Line, the Canvas window shows a letter-boxed 16 x 9 frame, with the anamorphic clip displayed within this frame as a horizontally squeezed 4 x 3. So now the Canvas window has grey bars top and bottom and black bars left and right. In the middle, taking up about 70% of the frame is a 4 x 3 horizontally squeezed version of the clip.

 

When making a Quick Time Movie from one's time-line edit, this finalized video continues to show a full-frame horizontally squeezed 4 x 3 image. However, when placing it in Toast 7 (video tab), even though the button becomes 16 x 9, the preview image is that centered, squeezed 4 x 3 with black bars top and bottom, left and right. The resulting encoded Disc Image and DVD copies provides a 16 x 9 frame, eliminating the bars top and bottom, but within that frame remains the squeezed 4 x 3 image with black bars left and right.

 

 

TEST #2 Final Cut Express set on NTSC Firewire Basic (Using a camera with a horizontal squeeze anamorphic lens)

 

When set for NTSC Firewire basic Capture of a lens generated anamorphic clip the Viewer shows a full-frame, horizontally squeezed 4 x 3 as does the Capture Window. Once the capture is complete and the clip is returned back to the Viewer it remains a horizontally squeezed 4 x 3. When placing that video on the Time Line, the Canvas window shows the same horizontally squeezed 4 x 3 clip filling the frame.

 

When making a Quick Time Movie from one's time-line edit, the finalized video continues to show as a full-frame, horizontally squeezed 4 x 3 picture. In Toast 7 (video tab) both the button and the preview window remains 4 x 3, fully containing a squeezed image as does the encoded Disc Image and DVD copies.

 

 

TEST #3 Final Cut Express set on NTSC Anamorphic (Using a camera with a self-contained electronic vertical anamorphic squeeze))

 

When set for NTSC Anamorphic the Capture of a camera generated anamorphic clip will show in the Viewer shows as a correct, letter-boxed 16 x 9 image, but Capture Window shows a horizontally squeezed 4 x 3. Once the capture is complete and the clip is returned back to the Viewer it once again becomes the correct letter-boxed 6 x 9. When placing that video on the Time Line, the Canvas window also shows the same letter-boxed 16 x 9 frame

 

When making a Quick Time Movie from one's time-line edit, this finalized video shows as a full-frame horizontally squeezed 4 x 3 image. However, when placing it in Toast 7 (video tab), the button becomes 16 x 9, but the preview image is still a 4 x 3 frame containing a letter-boxed 16 x 9 image with black bars top and bottom. The resulting encoded Disc Image and DVD copies presents a full, clean 16 x 9 frame.

 

 

My deductions from these tests:

 

Clearly Final Cut, (and probably other edit systems) are set up to achieve 16 x 9 videos from footage shot by cameras that electronically create a vertically squeezed 16 x 9 picture. Here one should set their edit program to an appropriate anamorphic setting. Once doing so the system will carry that 16 x 9 frame right through to the DVD. In Final Cut, the term "anamorphic" in no way relates to the use of anamorphic lenses. When shooting with an anamorphic lens one should NOT use the edit system's anamorphic setting. Doing so creates a vertically squeezed picture in the middle of a 16 x 9 frame. With such material one should edit in the basic 4 x 3 setting. However, in this setting the edit system, the encoder and the DVD burner have no information telling them the result should be a 16 x 9 video. Here one has to place the TS folder in a program like Streamclip, which will give the horizontally squeezed video its 16 x 9 instructions.

 

I am not sure what happens when one's project is a combination of electronic and lens created anamorphic images as my current project is. I have a feeling that problem will be sorted out at the edit house.

 

Clark

[grlspggn]

I found the answer, based on what you said about Toast recognising 16:9 video. Final Cut Express was not exporting the QT movie in 16:9 format because I had used the simpler Export > QT Movie. Instead, I used Export > Using QT Conversion. I accepted all defaults except for Size - I chose Use Custom: 1024 and 576 (although perhaps Use Current Size would do).

 

The resultant QT movie displayed on my LCD computer monitor in 16:9 format (which it had not done before when doing Export > QT Movie) so that was a step forward.

 

I then dragged the QT movie into Toast 7.0.2 as usual (no need to change defaults) and the image in Toast was in 16:9. The resulting DVD displayed as 16:9 on my LCD computer monitor. (However - not surprisingly - it displayed as 4:3 on my older TV set, which is 15 years old, with the image cropped left and right - 16:9 hadn't been invented 15 years ago!)

 

I can't test it on my modern TV set because my wife is using it for hours, but am confident that it will show 16:9 if I set it to that.

 

Thanks fo the help.