From my DV Camera to DVD, best possible way

[canada_habs2004]

Right now I am capturing video from my Cam via firewire onto hardrive as DV Encoder 1 AVI. Then I edit the video in MediaStudio Pro, same it as an MPEG2 file, and open it in DVD Movie Factory where it then burns the video to DVD

There must be millions of things that I could do better, all I really am concerned about is the BEST quality possible when playing off the DVD.
I believe Movie Factory converts the MPEG2 video to another format before burning the DVD or something like that.

Could someone list the best way to go through this entire process without losing any quality (i only have 80 free gb) and tell me all the specifics about the MPEG 2 files...etc like what bit rate to use...

[Soopafresh]

Canopus Procoder (Express) is considered by many to be the "best" DV-MPEG2 encoder. You could save your work as an AVI, then encode with Procoder, or frameserve (look it up) directly out of Media Studio into Procoder.

The Mpeg encoder that comes with Media Studio is pretty good, however. If it can do 2 pass Variable Bit Rate, you should be able to come up with good looking material regardless.

If you want to get truly superior quality results, you can go the AviSynth route. AviSynth has great deinterlacers, image enhancers, etc. Problem is, you'll have to learn the basic workings of the app, which can be daunting for some.

Bottom line: it all depends how much time and effort you want to put into it for the result.

[Richard_G]

No, you are doing it exactly as you should. You could even leave it as avi and put that into MovieFactory. If you save as mpeg from MSP in one resolution and bitrate, MovieFactory MIGHT re-encode it (depending on what you have saved it as/in).

The mpeg file needs to be in a DVD compliant resolution (720 x 480 if NTSC, 720 x 576 if PAL for fuill frame), see 'What is DVD' at the top left for compliant specs. I'm not too sure about MovieFactory (I use DVD Workshop) but it the file is already compliant there may be a setting somewhere to tell it not to re-encode it. For instance, if you had a file in half D1 resolution (352 x 480) which was only an hour long, Moviefactory may decide to re-size and re-encode it up to full D1 (720 x 480) as it can fit an hours worth of video onto a DVDR disc.