The question is this: does the final DVD picture quality becomes poorer than the raw material when the DVD is authored in DVD-lab Pro?

I explain: I capture the material with my MiniDV Sony Cam (Europe, PAL system). Then, if I connect the Cam directly to my TV with the normal AV cables just to see the film as it was shot, I get an exceptional colourful clear picture, with no grain at all (even in night shots), like the pictures we see in a professional DVD. I also can see the same good results after importing the material to my PC (as an AVI file) and play it with, for instance, Windows Media Player (WMP).

Then I edit the whole film with Pinnacle Studio 9 – I trim clips, add titles and grabbed frames, transitions, extra sounds, etc., etc. Finally I save (render) my movie as an MPEG file (DVD compatible). Once the movie has been rendered, I check the results with WMP again. So far, so good: the same nice picture quality – OK, let’s be honest: the original AVI picture quality is slightly better than the rendered MPEG file but this one is still very good as well!

Then I import the assets into DVD-lab Pro and author the complete DVD. When I finally put the burned DVD in my standalone DVD player to watch the film on the TV, the result is a little bit disappointing: the picture lost some colour (not so colourful and clear as the original film on the DV tape) and some grain is visible. Also, if we press the pause button somewhere in the movie during playback, some “pixellization” is visible too.

Is this normal? Is there any trick to avoid this?

Any comment/help will be highly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Mário