XVid to DVD - will I ever get good quality

[Proud Dad]

I have tried a number of different methods of converting some Xvid movies to DVD ...

I've utilized the various templates for TMPGenc all of which have resulted in crap.

The best results I've been able to obtain thus far are with NeoDVD ... this conversion results in video with the following specs: Bitrate 8234 Kbps, 29.970 fps, res. 720x480 (16:9), MPG2 = MPEG 2 (SVCD/DVD). Based on everything I've read, this file should look pretty good, but when I play the DVD on my 36" television, it's all blocky and not very sharp at all.

The orginal Xvid files are 14.95(?) fps, res. 352x240 (16:9).

I guess my question is, based on the origin file, can I ever expect to get a GOOD quality DVD as a result, or am I wasting my time?

[gilhoy]

The problem is the original framerate and width/height.
Sizing 352x240 (VCD) up to 720x480 (DVD) will never look good.
In this case, you'll actually get better results by encoding the original
to a high bitrate VCD.

I recently transferred a 3 hour Xvid (25 fps, 640x480) file to DVD.
Because of the length I could really only get a bitrate of around 3000-3500.
I used TMPGenc's DVD standard template.
It came out very nicely when watched on my 32" TV.