DVD Studio Pro tips

I have been making some DVDs with DVD Studio Pro 2 and Final Cut Pro 4. I had noticed that DVDSP was getting slow, and then it crashed as soon as I started using M2V’s from Compressor (MPEG-2 encoded files)

It turns out several issues were happening:

  • Always encode your audio with A.Pack – Use Final Cut to export your audio to AIFF using grouped channels, set up an A.Pack batch project to encode your audio in it’s proper format (usually stereo) and bring that AC3 file into DVDSP manually.

  • Always encode your video with closed GOPs. Compressor appears to not close GOPs properly, so set up a new preset, copy the preset you like (say 60min HQ) then change the format from auto to NTSC (or PAL) Now you can select the GOP tab and click “Closed”

  • Don’t be a dummy like me and assign your video as an asset on every button – Oops, copy and paste can sometimes be a killer – You can set the target, just not the asset – asset is for motion buttons, etc.