Having trouble with video qualtiy on dvd

[davidjon54]

What is the best way to get good video quality on a dvd using hd footage? Not getting good results so far.
Sony fx1, cyberlink, elements, vegas.
My nephew has an old standard JVC which doesn't show alot of detail but the video is as clear as glass.

[MOVIEGEEK]

I would first ask your nephew how he makes a DVD, my guess is he is transferring DV via firewire. Whenever you scale HD video to SD you will lose quality, if you change formats(AVCHD->MPEG) you will also lose quality. If your camcorder can record in MPEG-2/720x480 I would use that.

[davidjon54]

I'm the one that makes my nephew's video using firewire. My hd video on blue ray looks great so I don't think it's transfer issue. When I choose the option to burn br in the editing software it turns out great. When I choose the option to burn a dvd the video looks grainy, the color is not very good, and also the sharpness isn't as good. Of course, it's not hd when it burns to dvd but the video looks worse than video shot with his standard JVC camcorder. I've set up my camcorder to record in standard video and I'll give it a try. Thank you for your response.

[poisondeathray]

When I choose the option to burn a dvd the video looks grainy, the color is not very good, and also the sharpness isn't as good. Of course, it's not hd when it burns to dvd but the video looks worse than video shot with his standard JVC camcorder.

Yes, of course you can't compare it to HD, but when you say it looks worse than a standard SD camcorder there is a problem.

What bitrate are those applications using? Did you maximize it within DVD specs ?

In my experience , a properly made DVD from an HD source is ALWAYS sharper than one shot with a SD source from the same camera / shoot. The problem is most programs don't resize interlaced material correctly