Need Help! What Settings To Use For High Quality Dvds?

[kellip]

I'm working on a self-running slideshow at work that needs to be output to a standard DVD player for projection at an upcoming trade show.

 

We're in the media and entertainment business, so our stuff really needs to POP. Unfortunately, we're often at the mercy of whatever the event venue requires for slideshows. In the past, we've done PowerPoint slideshows and Flash Player files that were loaded on computers and displayed on flat screens or movie screens. The PPTs and Flash movies always looked great--colors popped, text was crisp, photos sharp, etc. However, for the last year or two, we've been burning our slideshows onto DVD, due to changing requirements from the event venues. We were using iDVD for creating the final DVDs. No matter how hi-res we would make our originals, the end result was a fuzzy, low-res mess. And iDVD would shrink the pixel dimensions down to 720x480--or something like that. I've heard a lot about how Toast can burn higher res DVDs, so we took the plunge and purchased the software.

 

Here's how I have created my file:

1. Layout and graphics created in Adobe InDesign at 1920 x 1080 size.

 

2. Export the .indd file into Flash

 

3. Set time line, transitions, etc. in Flash

 

4. Export as a QuickTime movie. (I played around with the export settings and can't remember what I set them to for hi-res. So if anyone has some advice on how to export from Flash, that would be wonderful. FYI, the latest .mov file I made was 16GB and looked great in QuickTime Player.)

 

So once I have my QuickTime movie created, what are the video settings I should choose in order to burn a decent looking DVD that doesn't yield a crummy-looking slide show? All the settings are an alphabet soup of acronyms that I've never even heard of.

 

Any advice would be MUCH appreciated. Also, if I wanted to do a 3:4 ratio movie, what pixel dimensions should be used in the source file (InDesign/Flash)?

 

Of course, this thing is due ASAP. ;-)

 

Thanks so much!!!

Kelli

[d_deweywright]

720x480 is "DVD" resolution, and for a standard DVD that's really the limit. Now, what you may have heard about is something called an AVCHD disc, which is essentially BD quality, on a DVD disc. It requires a special player to play it, and of course the video equipment must also support it. So, you'll need to check with your venue to see if their equipment supports that format.

 

I'm hoping someone with some experience with a) AVCHD and b ) Toast, will jump in here to give you more information. I'm a PC user, with no Hi-Def equipment, so I'm only speaking from what I know of standards.

 

When you create your PowerPoint presentations, you can run at full monitor resolutions, which, until you get into Hi-Def 1080 mode, are signficantly better than standard video resolutions. That's why they looked so much sharper and "popped" better.

 

Hope that answers the "what" part of "what's going on?"

 

Like I say, hopefully someone else will jump in to help you with the "How" part.

[tsantee]

I'm working on a self-running slideshow at work that needs to be output to a standard DVD player for projection at an upcoming trade show.

 

We're in the media and entertainment business, so our stuff really needs to POP. Unfortunately, we're often at the mercy of whatever the event venue requires for slideshows. In the past, we've done PowerPoint slideshows and Flash Player files that were loaded on computers and displayed on flat screens or movie screens. The PPTs and Flash movies always looked great--colors popped, text was crisp, photos sharp, etc. However, for the last year or two, we've been burning our slideshows onto DVD, due to changing requirements from the event venues. We were using iDVD for creating the final DVDs. No matter how hi-res we would make our originals, the end result was a fuzzy, low-res mess. And iDVD would shrink the pixel dimensions down to 720x480--or something like that. I've heard a lot about how Toast can burn higher res DVDs, so we took the plunge and purchased the software.

 

Here's how I have created my file:

1. Layout and graphics created in Adobe InDesign at 1920 x 1080 size.

 

2. Export the .indd file into Flash

 

3. Set time line, transitions, etc. in Flash

 

4. Export as a QuickTime movie. (I played around with the export settings and can't remember what I set them to for hi-res. So if anyone has some advice on how to export from Flash, that would be wonderful. FYI, the latest .mov file I made was 16GB and looked great in QuickTime Player.)

 

So once I have my QuickTime movie created, what are the video settings I should choose in order to burn a decent looking DVD that doesn't yield a crummy-looking slide show? All the settings are an alphabet soup of acronyms that I've never even heard of.

 

Any advice would be MUCH appreciated. Also, if I wanted to do a 3:4 ratio movie, what pixel dimensions should be used in the source file (InDesign/Flash)?

 

Of course, this thing is due ASAP. ;-)

 

Thanks so much!!!

Kelli

 

I have found the best setting for converting a video to QuickTime for later conversion by Toast to video DVD is DVCPRO50 NTSC and choosing progressive as the scan mode. Also, in the Toast custom encoder settings window move the average bit rate up to 6 or 7 and turn on half pel.