Best Quality Technique - Animiation, Print to Video?

[jherzog]

I have a video shot on miniDV in SD and edited in Final Cut Pro. This video will be played in a large theater on the big screen. I am wondering what is the best way to play this video and maximize quality?

My thoughts are:

1) export in QuickTime using the animation codec for Full quality. This is great quality but has a couple of issues. It has to be run on a laptop. Even though I can hook up a laptop, the video will not be in the same resolution as the laptop. This means I will either leave parts of my desktop viewable while the video is playing (BAD) or choose the full screen option in QT which will upscale and distort the video. Plus, even on a nice laptop, a video of such quality/size could underrun.

2) I could print to video back onto a clean miniDV tape. But I doubt the theater could play miniDV. So I could use the RCA outs on my camcorder and play it in that manner. Is that full quality?

Which technique is better? Is there a better or more professional way to do this? I typically publish for the web so I unsure.

Thank you so much for your thoughts.

[yoda313]

Check if they have a dvd player available. Then you can just author a normal dvd that way. I wouldn't use any "animation" feature unless it actually is animation.

About your second question I assume the video out from the camcorder is the regular quality. Though since I only have an analog camcorder and not a minidv one I can't confirm that supposition.

By the way welcome to the forum

[edDV]

2 Contact the theater or organizing committee for the event and ask which connections are available. I agree with Yoda that DVD is likely to be supported. Use near max bit rate when encoding for DVD. Use a quality DVD player rather than laptop. Ask for a YPbPr connection rather than composite. Direct MiniDV playback to YPbPr would be a set up.

[jherzog]

Ok thanks for the advice. I feel the MPG4 codec (DVD's codec) is not that great of quality. The Animation codec looks a ton better. The animation codec is the fullest quality codec I know of. I even feel h264 looks better then DVD. Thats just my opinion. I will try authoring a DVD and seeing.

Thanks for the welcome.

I have never printed to video and played from my miniDV cam. Are there any other opinions on what that quality would be?

Thanks again.

[greymalkin]

What are the settings you are using for the MPG2 (DVD) encoding? You should be able to have good quality results from it if you're using a good encoder and the proper settings. Playing it through an upconverting DVD player might help, but playing a DV file over composite cables will definitely soften the image.

[edDV]

Ok thanks for the advice. I feel the MPG4 codec (DVD's codec) is not that great of quality.

DVD is MPeg2 by definition. Encode >8Mb/s +PCM, or >9Mb/s with MP2 or AC3 audio. Do not deinterlace.
See "What is DVD?" https://www.videohelp.com/dvd