OK, so I am wondering about video quality and rendering. My equipment list includes Dell XPS 1330 running Windows 7. Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9 Platinum Edition for editing and rendering. Sony DCR-SR45 Camcorder and Sony DSC-W290 Digicam.

The camcorder shoots video sized at 720x480 either way in 4:3 or 16:9. The difference is that in 4:3, there are black bars on the left and right sides of the video. Anyways, I have shot video in 4:3 Standard Play and in 16:9 High Quality.

Heres info on three videos I have recorded and edited.
4:3 standard play .mpg, rendered with NTSC DV 720x480 option as .avi final length/size 10mins/2.12GB.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1IlskCN6lA
4:3 standard play .mpg, rendered with HDV 720-30p option as .avi final length/size 7:26mins/1.58GB.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS7n0wKg3EQ
16:9 High Quality .mpg, rendered with HDV 720-30p option as .avi final length/size 5:21mins/1.14GB.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnKhf7TUoIU

I have not been impressed with the quality of the final quality, and then once I have posted my videos on youtube.com, the quality sometimes gets worse. Can anyone give me advice on making my videos look better? Am I rendering the videos wrong? I just don’t see how my videos don’t look good and sharp. As compared to a 45 minute/ 150MB TV show that someone recorded and turned into a .mkv file that’s slightly smaller than 720x480. When I put the video full size on my external 19” monitor which is 1680x1050, the TV show looks better than my video. Thanks for any help.