best ..

[dubz]

whats the best resolution to burn a DVD-r in?

[macleod]

there are only 3 resolutions to start with, 704x480,720x480,352x480 (NTSC)

I have read the 704x480 is better than 720x480, however, I will leave that up to you to do research on.

[bartman]

720x576 for PAL and 720x480 for NTSC

[ZippyP.]

there are only 3 resolutions to start with, 704x480,720x480,352x480 (NTSC)

Not quite, there's a couple more:
NTSC
720 x 480 pixels MPEG2
704 x 480 pixels MPEG2
352 x 480 pixels MPEG2 (Same as the CVD Standard)
352 x 240 pixels MPEG2
352 x 240 pixels MPEG1 (Same as the VCD Standard)

As for best, it depends on your source resolution. If it's DVD then keep it full DVD. If it's not, then pick one that's close.

[macleod]

352 x 240 pixels MPEG2
352 x 240 pixels MPEG1 (Same as the VCD Standard)

These are legal DVD resolutions? You "can" make a DVD with these resolutions, but they are not legal DVD resolutions from what I know. Without doing some "fiddlin", the poster can's dump these two resolutions into, say Movie Factory 2 and burn it and know that it will play on any dvd player that will play DVD-R. Of course the non compliant 352x480 is dvd compliant (switching audio from 44.1 to 48mhz). That was what I was referring to in my "3" resolutions.

If you know a way to do the 352x240 mpeg2 and 352x240 mpeg1 that will dump into any authoring program and burn, please let me know.

[Baldrick]

352x240(288) mpeg1/2 is a legal dvd resolution. And it works fine in most authoring tools I have tested.

[TBoneit]

In Fact I've been dumping my old VCDs 352 x 240 x 44.1Khz into TMPGEnc DVD author and letting it convert the audio for me, I was doing the Baldrick guide where you demux the audio & video, convert the audio remux and use Ulead DVD MF2, and that worked too, but this is easier and just as quick or quicker.

Anyway in MF2 it shows 352 by 240 to be a legal DVD resolution.

Cheers

[Vejita-sama]

Every authoring program I've used (IFOEdit, DVD Maestro, NeoDVD, DVD Lab) accepts 352x240 video (MEPG1 or MPEG2). I mostly use DVD Maestro these days. As others have stated this is a legal DVD resolution and any authoring program should accept it.