Re: Compressor: Why is there a Progressive setting if DVD is interlaced?

[Ralph Parker] "I've read posts in the Forums about using Compressor to take my sequences to Progressive, and then encode to SD m2v as a separate step. This confuses me"

It should. This is stupid advice. If you have an interlaced cut, you keep it interlaced. If you have a progressive cut, you keep it progressive.

[Ralph Parker] "there is a popup to choose Field Dominance which includes a Progressive setting; but if this is for SD DVD, why?"

You can make a progressive DVD if your cut is progressive. That usually happens when you're cutting 23.976P. Most motion pictures on DVD are 23.976P encoded - it actually looks better since you can take the fixed amount of bits and spread them across fewer frames.

The simplest way I can explain Compressor's encoding controls is this: whatever your cut is, keep it that way unless you are forced to change it. For example, if your cut is 1080i/29.97, and you want to go to SD DVD, keep interlacing. If you set that value to the "automatic" setting, Compressor will understand what you're trying to do. Then, the only thing that you are 'forced' to change is the resolution. If you are compressing for MPEG-2 for DVD, then it's 720x480/16:9 pixel aspect ratio.

In Compressor, the Frame Controls tab allows you to finesse the settings. For your compression, I would turn Frame Controls ON, set Resize to BEST, Leave deinterlacing alone (same as source/Fast), leave retiming alone (fast). This tells Compressor to spend some time doing the best it can in resizing your HD to SD 4x3 anamorphic.

Only adjust settings if you are forced to change them. In this case, the only thing you're forced to change is resolution (frame size). Everything else should go through with as little compression artifact as possible.