Ok, I'll try to explain this problem the best I can. I download the avis and then use Virtual dub to add black bars so that the subtitles can be seen on my tv. Plus Virtual dub automatically corrects any audio synch problems that might occur later. I compress it with Divx 5 codec at 5000 kbs(I dunno why 5000, it just seems a good number to me). So I do all that. Sometimes the resulting video will be just a little grainy, sometimes it will be really grainy and sometime it won't be grainy at all when played back on my computer. I don't know why. Then I use Ulead VideoStudio to encode to mpeg2 dvd. Now after this is when I can tell if the final dvd is going to be grainy or not. If I pklay it back in wmp it's fine but when I play it in the VS previewer it's totally grainy and I know that's how the dvd will be. I tried 4 different times on the same video with getting anywhere from perfect results to horrible results and not doing anything differently. Now I'm doing a different video and only getting varying levels of grain. I've already wasted several dvds. I don't expect this question to be answered but I thought I'd give it a shot. thanks.