My DVD Down-Res Philosophy

After growing up on standard-def prosumer camcorders, I cannot explain how much I love DSLR 1080 24p footage for events. Recently, a friend in the wedding video business asked me how that relates to the DVDs I give to clients. Are they 1080p? While numerous videographers are beginning to offer blu-ray HD discs, my clients (so far) have asked for standard DVDs. In these cases, is the 1080p recording necessary? While some may say that it is debatable, there are advantages beyond the potential for a nicer-looking end product. (Note that 24p in my case is entirely preference; the 24 vs. 30 fps debate is unrelated to the purpose of this post.)

advantages

One advantage of recording in 1080p is the ability to re-frame. While post-cropping is generally frowned upon, in some cases (i.e. while recording a wide shot, an unforeseen occurrence at a live event catches your eye, but you don’t have time to swap lenses. The resulting footage makes the subject look too much like a far away ant.) it is a wonderful asset. With 1080 footage working on a 720 timeline, you have a lot of wiggle room before down-res, without loosing any resolution. You can always down-res, but you can never up-res. Only once have I made the fatal mistake of recording standard-def, and I will never make that mistake again. Ever. I’m emotionally scarred from the trauma. Fortunately, the project was a repeatable short, showcasing future potential technology, so I only lost sixteen hours of work. Unfortunately, I had to recreate the project start to finish in a single day to meet the deadline. The ordeal almost killed me, even though I came out successful in the end. Take heed, dear friend, and play it safe.

fun techy stuff

In addition, I have been asked how I use 1080p footage. My workflow is fairly straightforward; I export the edited sequence full resolution and bring it into Compressor to create DVD compatible files. This is where I feel like I cheat; I drag the .mov files into compressor, and drag over the “DVD: Best Quality 90 minutes” preset. Simple, effective, and hassle-free. (Compression for internet streaming on various servers, however, is an entirely different monster. Be forewarned.)

My completed DVD project folders look like this: