I'm developing a products DVD for a scientific instruments company where I work, and I've shot a lot of footage with a DV Camcorder (Canon Optura 10). When I playback the video footage directly to a video screen from the camera, everything looks smooth the way it should.

I then make captures of portions of the footage, downloading from the camera to my computer over a firewire cable and capturing in VideoStudio 8, and somewhere between that step and DVD burning a considerably amount of jerkyness -- like frames are being dropped -- is introduced into the video.

I don't know if it's from the capture step, or the rendering following edits, or the burning to DVD, but a lot of the quality is being lost somewhere.

Also, I wonder if video playback on a conventional Windows computer with a standard video card isn't a lossy playback medium in the first place. Should I get a better video card with more memory or something? Would that improve my previewing?

Thanks in advance,

Mitch Gordon

(P.S. Specs of what I'm doing below)

Project Template Properties:

NTSC drop frame (29.97 fps), Microsoft AVI files, 24 Bits, 720 x 480, 4:3, 29.97 fps, Lower Field First, MainConcept DV Codec 2.0.4 -- type 2, PCM, 32.000 kHz, 16 Bit, Stereo

Edit Preferences:

Resampling Quality=Best, Keep Aspect Ratio, Apply Color Filter=Yes (NTSC)

AVI file output format:

Microsoft AVI files, 24 Bits, 720 x 480, 4:3, 29.97 fps,Lower Field First, DV Video Encoder -- type 2, Interleave audio for every 15 frames, PCM, 48.000 kHz, 16 Bit, Stereo

DVD output format:

MPEG files, 24 Bits, 720 x 480, 29.97 fps, Lower Field First, (DVD-NTSC), 4:3, Video data rate: 8264 kbps