Help refining process

[grovep]

Hi , I'm fairly new to DV and the different video formats but done a little dabbling trying to learn. I have a Panasonic NV GS180 video camera and the "MotionDV Studio LE for DV" software that came with camera. I also have Uleadvideostudio 7 and Windows Media on my PC. My main purpose of downloading the video to the PC is to archive it and/or copy it sometimes compressed depending upon the media of the copy. Since searching this forum I read the best solution for of archiving it to keep it on tape in the first place so I will have to have a think on that but I would prefer to keep it on DVD.
So what I have done is to transfer it to the PC using the MotionDv software that came with it and I end up with a large AVI file around 12GB for 1 Hour. Next I have experimented with different approaches using Windows Media at different settings of bit rate etc and these results are OK-ish but disappointing when it comes to quick moving scenes even at high bit rates. I've also converted it to MPEG2 using Ulead (disappointing results) and also authored it to DVD (using DVD Santa) however the authored DVD was also disappointing on the quick moving scenes. The DVD was 1.75Hrs worth of video on a standard 4.7GB DVD.

Can I improve the quality by obtaining a better codec or better software? Should I put less on a DVD? Should I investigate MPEG4 or DIVX or do these just given better compression which I'm note really bothered about. Ideally I would like to put a file on a DVD that not only gives good quality but also has a chance of playing on some DVD players.

Thanks

[guns1inger]

DVD Santa ranks in the bottom three for video software. Take that out of the mix and you are already on the way to better product.

If you are on a budget, look at the free GUIForDVDAuthor for authoring. It won't re-encode and drop the quality, and is standards compliant.

[mats.hogberg]

Look at the "real" mpeg encoders found under tools left. Canopus Procoder, TMPGEnc, CCE or even free HCEnc are good choices.
Depending on the source video, low(er) quality in high movement scenes is inevitable. Video from hand held cameras are among the hardest source mtrl to compress nicely.

/Mats

[thecoalman]

I've also converted it to MPEG2 using Ulead (disappointing results)

Ulead uses a version of mainconcept and the resulting MPEG file should be adeqaute. That version is quite out of date so you might want to try a newer version. One thing to note, you mention you have problems during motion scenes. That can result from selecting the wrong filed order, DV is Bottom Field First, make sure that is what you have selected under the encoding options.

For archiving as you mentioend keep the tapes, for full quality additional archiving I'd suggest getting a external drive and save the Dv-AVi file to there too. It requires a lot of space but look at it as a photo negative, for a source it will never be better than that.

Don't use WMV for archiving.