i know this is what happens if you make your movie small size and then try to blow it up. But is there some other way that you could still make it small and look good when it fills the screen for dvd? would changing compressor type in poser help? naaah i gues s no.

For creating DVD movies, I'd suggest rendering out of Poser as a series of still images (TIFF or PNG) and using a program that specializes on DVD encoding to turn it into a movie. Amonst others, the big advantage is that you can try it out different compression settings without having to render over and over again.

Stewer makes good sense.  Keep in mind that DVD "IS" a compressed format. 

ALWAYS render to an uncompressed format. Use compression ONLY for the final..

DVD is a disc format (Digital Video Disc).  The video format is MPEG-2 - lossy compression.

As Stewer notes, best to do a series of still renders and turn into a movie in another app.  Actually, I use Premiere Pro for NL editing and preparation, saving as a raw video format.  Then I use a DVD encoding/burning software to create the DVD disc.  VBR (Variable Bit Rate) for best compression with highest quality.

Outside of DVD - when you take an image of ANY format that is 512x384 and enlarge it, it will not magically gain quality no matter what you do.  The pixels can be blurred or antialiased, but you can't expect detail to be created where there isn't any in the first place.

You could try rendering the images as normal & then enlarging them with Genuine Fractals. This is probably the best format for blowing up images without losing much quality. Then you could go through the movie process.
Just a thought.

Actually DVD means "Digital Versatile Disc" a common misconception to think the letter V stands for video. Tebop if you have the disc space available render your animations uncompressed at 720x480 size 24 FPS IIRC you are a mac user so after editing your completed movie in FCP or even imovie and import into IDVD make sure IDVD is set to "pro quality" encoding this should give you a decent result on your DVD. cheers

http://www.videohelp.com/dvd

Either, actually. But when discussing DVD Video, I prefer "Video". ;P

I second wolf359 - you'll want to go 720 x 480 (1:1 pixel ratio). If your target audience is US, I'd go 30 fps to avoid 3:2 pulldown artifacts, which is really a shame since 24 fps is a more intuitive frame rate for animating.

As an aside, I'm looking forward to creating my first blu-ray disc at 1080p; talk about render times going through the roof!

replicand are your masters 1920x1080?

I have begun rendering my frames intended for DVD at 960x540 square pixels, which is a one-quarter subset of full HD. Yes, that means my DVD finals will be letterboxed. However, this positions me to simply 'scale up' to BlueRay without recomposing my scenes...just 4 times the render time.

I also simply like the 'feeling' of the aspect ratio of 960x540.

::::: Opera :::::

Just curious opera guy, what app are you using for NLE post and DVD authoring?? alot of decent choices abound these days

i am an Adobe man! I have the full Production Studio Suite, largest software purchase I ever made.

I use both After Effects and PhotoshopWithActions for post processing. Composite has been in After Effects. My workflow after that is Still To Be Finalized. I've use iDVD and even QuickTimePro for a project or two, but I would imagine Premiere/Encore will be my weapons of choice for final compression of serious work. The reason my output strategy is fuzzy is....I am just getting to the point of actual film-making. I am working on a music video and a set of shorts.

Having spent a lot of time 'getting to the point' in 3D while finishing two massive business projects in FoxPro over the last three years, I am now moving steadily forward.

Music is processed on the Mac side...I have LogicPro and a full-blown DAW.

::::: Opera :::::

Sounds like a good functional setup I have Adobe premiere 6.5 on OSX tiger on my Macbook new (my FCP 4 wont run on the mac book) as well as the older Adobe After Effects 5.5 production bundle and Combustion for post effects. I really like the IDVD on tiger/leopard as well as the New IMovie on tiger/leopard for simple editing/cutting there is a free version of AVID DV available that I play with with sometimes when i have time frankly always been a bit of a post production video editing junkie.

OG, the aspect ratio of renders are (approximately) 1.78. I create dailies at 1024 x 575 and use 640 x 360 if I'm checking lights or what not. So to answer your original question, I'm not rendering at 1920 x 1080 yet but that is the goal. Since the aspect ratio never changes, then I know it will be right as you have mentioned. I imagine that your renders will not be letterboxed when displayed on a 16:9 screen. Like you, I am still finalizing post-production workflow. My Windows boxes run AE7. Since I've switched to Mac, I have no serious composting software but my Renderman-centric workflow will probably guide me towards Pixar's "it". Finally my DAW of choice is Cubase linked to MOTU 896 converter. Like you I plan to create videos but school has prevented the serious pursuit of that goal ATM.

best of fortune to you and all of us really trying to make actual films and DVDs as Wolf is already doing, I believe.

The newest Adobe Suite runs on Mac, but only the Intel-based Macs. That being said, there must be something that works with Final Cut Pro on the Mac side for compositing. 

What is Pixar's "it?"

::::: Opera :::::

"It" is a module in Renderman Studio which composites images, and appears to work as an interactive viewer for Renderman. Though the site is not clear on the details, "it" should also composite image sequences as well since Renderman is known as a motion picture renderer.