Re: Decent quality DVD vision. Is it Possible?

I use FCP 7's Print to Video, outputting 1080 to be downscaled with a Matrox MXO2 LE and record straight to DVD with a settop box. If I need to work with the SD video more (e.g. DVD Studio Pro) I'll record SD to my Ki-Pro instead (which also does just as good or better downscale itself) and bring the SD file to compressor.

I too have never been able to get acceptable results with software... Until I tried it in FCPX! By bringing the finished HD edit into an SD Project (aka sequence) and then exporting. I was pleasantly surprised with the results after using compressor's DVD preset and burning. If the HD project in FCPX has a lot of effects/color correction etc. it will take forever to export an SD version. So I'll export HD current settings first, then bring the "baked" clip back in to an SD project to be exported. Not as good as the KiPro, and of course the result is not without artifacts but decent for what it is.

Either way, its not going to be a hollywood quality DVD, but quite honestly I don't even want my DVD's to look any better! As far as I'm concerned DVD needs to die a quick death, it's quality is too comparitely low to today's standards. Its such a shame to shoot beauliful 1920x1080 and deliver crappy SD. Blu-ray or file based delivery is where its at. On many projects I'll give the customer a free Blu-ray along with their DVD just so they'll have it in the future (I'm stunned by the quality of HD video compressed for iPnone even playback to tv via HDMI is good). DVD can't even maintain the quality of video shot on my friggin' cell phone (iPhone 4s)... Dun Dun Dun another format bites the dust.