Why does recorded miniDV footage look smeared

[WitchfinderGeneral]

I recently went on vacation and I used my JVC miniDV camcorder GR-D270u model. The footage loaded up onto my computer perfectly and I used DVDSanta to treansfer it so that i can watch it on a stand alone dvd player. Both in the Windows Media Player on the computer and on the dvd transferred disc. The picture does not look clear and sharp but rather a lot of footage looks slightly smeared and distorted. I thought I was going to get smooth looking footage but i guess I was wrong. Does anybody know how to clear up this or fix it?

[BJ_M]

you prob. encoded it progressive and you should have done interlaced for one thing ...

[WitchfinderGeneral]

Well how do I do that? I just stick in the fire wire cable in the back of the camera and then it uploads automatically. I set it in the recorder from the software as High Quality. They have other settings like Low Quality and other. I thought High Quality would give it just that.

[thecoalman]

Well how do I do that? I just stick in the fire wire cable in the back of the camera and then it uploads automatically. I set it in the recorder from the software as High Quality. They have other settings like Low Quality and other. I thought High Quality would give it just that.

When you import from the cam import as DV-AVI, there's no options. You may get the option of type 1 or type 2, if you do use type 1. That will be an exact copy of what is on the cam, you can use Windows Movie Maker to do this or any other number of applications.

Use PowerDVD to preview as it does a good job of displaying made for TV video. Keep in mind Video made for TV will not look as good on computer monitor as it will once burned to DVD if done properly.

From there you need to convert to DVD compliant mpeg2 for authoring and burning to disc. Get some RW's and use short clips to test until you get some good results. If done properly the results should be nearly identical to however it looks if the cam is hooked directly to the TV.

[BJ_M]

i thought he was encoding to mpeg2 as he was importing, instead of import , then encode - hence the settings for thus

[edDV]

I think "High Quality" in Movie Maker 2 goes to highly compressed WMV. He needs to "capture" to DV-AVI if he isn't already.

Likewise he needs to export as DV-AVI to the authoring software if he is editing in MM2. When encoding MPeg2, bitrate should be 8-9Mbps, 6Mbps low end.