Advice on my Setup

[Elmo2004]

I have created a few home videos which I have successfully burned to VCD with great success. I have bought an NEC DVD writer and am looking to produce my own DVDs.

So far I have burned a couple of 60 minute films that I have made (family holidays etc) and the DVDs have worked fine for around 30 minutes, then they start to stick and skip with more and more frequency as time goes on. I have read on the forums that cheap DVDs have a tendency to do this, so I am off to invest in some better quality DVDs.

I would however like some suggestions on what other kit I might need in order to produce high quality home DVDs.

I have:
AMD 2800+ PC, running XP Home. Loads of RAM and storage. FX5700 Graphics. Motherboard has onboard Firewire.
Cannon MX500 Digital Video Camera
Adobe Premiere Pro for editing video and exporting as AVI
Ulead Movie Factory to converting files and burning to DVD (which is slow and unpredictable).

At present, I copy the files from my video camera using the firewire port on my motherboard, using Premiere Pro. Edit the video in premiere pro and then export it as an AVI file (which are always HUGE!).
I then use Ulead Movie Maker to convert the file and burn it to DVD in one go.

Is this the most efficient way of doing things? Is there anything else (equipment wise) that I need? Do I need a dedicated video capture card?

Thanks in advance for any pointers.

[redwudz]

I prefer using 2 harddrives, a little more efficient, but not a major problem.

Yes, try better (Or different) media until you find some that will work for you.

If you are happy with your results, your software must be OK. I have about 20 different programs relating to video, each has it's purpose. I mostly use VirtualDub, WinDV, TMPGEnc encoder, TMPGEnc DVD Author, sometimes Mainconcept encoder, Nero, DVDdecrypter, DvdShrink.

As far as a capture card, it depends what you have in mind. If your video camera has pass through, I would use that instead. If not, there are a lot of them listed to the left. <<<

[Capmaster]

It sounds like you're on your way. The media is what I would suspect, given the symptoms.

You don't have a problem in the processing power department - plenty of horsepower there. The approach you're taking is time-consuming, as you know, but the quality ought to be top-notch