WS Conversion Problems with Authoring DVDs

[baldy95307]

I'm as confused as the next person. I'm trying to create desktop playable DVDs using my video that is 16:9 format. The unedited video is 1440x1080 in .MTS format. After editing in Cyberlink's Power Director, am I supposed to save the edited video as MPEG2 in standard DVD format of 720x480? I've done that and the video's look just fine when viewing on the computer using Windows Media Player.

The problem seems to come about when I use Power Director to author a DVD menu. The resultant video looks squashed (the people look fat) and the video quality has gone in the dumper.

I used DVD Flick to author the same exact 720x480 files and the results came out OK as everybody not looking fat but still the quality was abysmal.

So somebody tell me what am I supposed to do? I don't wish to watch the MPG files on a computer but rather want them all on playable DVDs with menus. How am I supposed to save my edited videos, in 1440x1080 custom MPG format or 720x480 DVD compliant, or what? Should I be looking at using a different authoring program?

[_Al_]

the problem is:
1. resize from HD interlace to SD interlace

commercial programs are kind of lame to resize it well, Avisynth helps with this task but it is kind of advanced

2. good encoder


So you see, problem is maybe right at the beginning using power director for editing HD interlace and then trying to to get SD interlace out of it.

[manono]

I'm as confused as the next person.

The next person isn't confused. You are.

After editing in Cyberlink's Power Director, am I supposed to save the edited video as MPEG2 in standard DVD format of 720x480?

Not necessarily. If you insist on using its MPEG-2 encoder, then yes. But I don't (and won't) use anything made by Cyberlink for anything. What kind of editing are you doing?

The problem seems to come about when I use Power Director to author a DVD menu. The resultant video looks squashed (the people look fat) and the video quality has gone in the dumper.

I don't understand this. It sounds like besides creating menus you're reencoding the main video yet again. If it was made into a DVD compliant MPEG-2 video with audio already, it shouldn't be reencoded again.

I used DVD Flick to author the same exact 720x480 files...

Are you using the word 'author' to mean both converting/encoding and authoring? Because they're two completely different things.

How am I supposed to save my edited videos...

If you're not experienced enough to do this manually, especially the encoding, I'd save it as lossless AVI if possible (Lagarith, UT Video Codec, etc.) and then feed the result into AVSToDVD for the encoding and making of simple menus. You can also have AVSToDVD make a DVD-compliant MPEG from that lossless AVI and then feed it into an authoring program for menu creation and authoring, a program such as DVD Styler (freeware). Once you have DVD compliant video and audio, no further reencoding should take place.

If you already have DVD compliant audio and video and you're pleased with how it looks, you can feed it into DVD Styler for the authoring and menu-making.