My friend Matt messages me on facebook:

“I am used to the “export to disk” function is Adobe….. I will use DVD Studio Pro to build the senior video, but how should I export and import into DVD Studio? … the full length [video name] that [jerk “boss”] wants on Monday. It is nearly 2 hours and when I export to Quicktime, it is 21GB!!! (how the hell do I always end up with the biggest files? lol) I really just need something that will autoplay in his DVD player, no fancy menus and sh*t.”

I’m glad he made the switch to Mac, now I won’t have to answer so many gosh darn PC Video problems. but for the time being its “pwnage” season on his mac rookie-ness.

Easiest Question- Why is my QT 21GB?! (Get Bitrate Pro) 1 Hour of DV video is roughly 10-12GB so two hours would be ~20Gb.

Now here’s the useful information:

There’s two methods to make a DVD. One is to encode the files and author it or the other is to use a DVD recorder to burn a screener. For Matt I hope he has the available option of #2, because encoding a 2 hour video is not really fun. (Note he’s on EXTREMELY tight deadline on his first FCP project.)

1. In FCP go File>Export> Using Compressor

   

2. Then in the settings window (lower left) Select the DVD option which makes the most sense. There’s two flavors of each bitrate. Fastest encode vs. Best Quality… All it is 1 pass VBR vs. 2 pass VBR. Use one pass for anything that’s urgent of a screener. Use 2 pass if quality is worth you losing a lot of time. (You can use inspector to modify any settings, like aspect ratio, bitrate, cropping, and all sorts of things but this is a beginner’s guide)
3. Then set your destination and Compress Away!
   

As far as Authoring is concerned here’s a good YouTube tutorial, although ignore the beginning steps I would not advise bringing your QT directly into Studio Pro its nice to have the M2v and AC3 first.

Option 2, and the more time effective method is buy a DVD recorder hook it up to some out (breakout-box, kona card or even firewire converter) and play it out of the computer whilst recording it to DVD in real time.