FCP and "Director commentary" - how?

karavite

karavite

Registered
Hi - I have been looking for this one in many places and no luck yet. Here is what I want to do. Say I have a small movie in FCP. I want to record a voice over similar to a commentary like in a real DVD/movie. I want the DVD to have the option to just "watch the movie" and "watch the movie with audio commentary" where the voice over track is mixed at a high level and the movie's audio is very quiet. Now, I suppose it is easy to just make two versions of the movie (1 with the commentary) and put those on the DVD, but I am betting this is certianly not what "store bought" DVDs do - why waste so much space with 2 or more versions of the video? Same idea with subtitles.

Is it possible for a shmuck like me to do all this on my Mac? It has to be. I have FCP HD and maybe I need the latest DVD studio and/or who knows what else, but I think it must be possible - just don't know how.
 
FYI, it was really a matter of what to call this for the search "alternate tracks" is it. It is possible with DVD Studio Pro, FCP. iDVD? Doubt it, but wouldn't that be nice?
 
Dear karavite,

First, the two pieces of software that you will need is Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro.

To do a Director's Commentary to very simple. You have the principles right in where the Director over talks the movie soundtrack. Of course, the Director's voice is at a higher volume output.

The trick is that the director's soundtrack is saved as an separte soundtrack. When it comes to making the DVD, you import the video and film soundtrack and also the director's soundtrack. To make it to work, the Director's soundtrack MUST be the same length (in time). So if the film is 5:15 long, so must be the Director's soundtrack.

To switch between the two is actually done in the DVD Studio Pro software, whereas you tell the software that if the user presses the 'audio' button, the software switches tracks, and vica versa.

I hope that this explains the basics, there is more of a detail explaination in the DVD Studio Pro manual, or the Apple website:

http://www.apple.com/support/dvdstudiopro/index.html

Regards,
 
Hi cg!

Thanks. FCP I have. DVD Studio I don't. Oh well, I figured it had to be possible. Still, thank you very much for the tips!
 
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