How to get the best quality from DV-films ?

[MiniCooper]

I have a DV-camera, Sony PC9E. I use Pinaccle Studio to edit the movie and I save it as SVCD and then burn it with Nero.

I wonder if this really is the best way to save the movies? It is boring to have such good quality as the original DV-format, and then get such poor quality when the movie is saved as VCD or SVCD. Is there not any other way to get better quality, and still be able to run the film in a DVD player?
If I have filmed an hour with the camera, the movie is about 600Mb in SVCD and in video-quality.
If I compare this with a movie downloaded from Direct Connect in DivX-format, the quality is very good, but still the movie is about 600-700Mb. How can this be??
Is it possible to get this high quality from my DV-films, but still keep the size down to 600-700Mb?

A second question: I have problems to get the DVD player to start the VCD and SVCD movies. The player says there is no disc inserted. The DVD player is new, and is able to play VCD and SVCD. But it don't start anyway? Sometimes the DVD in my computer can play the films, but not always. Those times it don't function properly, a message says: "The disc can't be played because the disc is scratched or needs to be cleaned". Even if the disc are completely new. What is the problem? Any tips? I would be very glad for help!!!

[Chris X]

I have a DV-camera, Sony PC9E. I use Pinaccle Studio to edit the movie and I save it as SVCD and then burn it with Nero.

I wonder if this really is the best way to save the movies?
It is boring to have such good quality as the original DV-format, and then get such poor quality when the movie is saved as VCD or SVCD. Is there not any other way to get better quality, and still be able to run the film in a DVD player?
If I have filmed an hour with the camera, the movie is about 600Mb in SVCD and in video-quality.
If I compare this with a movie downloaded from Direct Connect in DivX-format, the quality is very good, but still the movie is about 600-700Mb. How can this be??
Is it possible to get this high quality from my DV-films, but still keep the size down to 600-700Mb?

A second question: I have problems to get the DVD player to start the VCD and SVCD movies. The player says there is no disc inserted. The DVD player is new, and is able to play VCD and SVCD. But it don't start anyway? Sometimes the DVD in my computer can play the films, but not always. Those times it don't function properly, a message says: "The disc can't be played because the disc is scratched or needs to be cleaned". Even if the disc are completely new. What is the problem? Any tips? I would be very glad for help!!!

IF Done right with a good encoder such as TMPGenc, CCE, Pinacle etc, it is very possible to get high Quality SVCD that will look and sound much better then those 700MB DivX files. If you use TMPGenc, just make shure you Output basic YuV data as basic YCbCr, and not CCIR601, then your colour and image quality will be more vivid as its good for DiVI conversion. The reason those DivX files look so good at cd size is because those files have been optimized for a high resolution monitor that is 1:1 VGA, whereas SVCD and VCD are in Mpeg1 and 2 Optimized for A. Filesize, B, Optimium resolution and playback on a low resolution TV set. TV sets are low interlaced resolution display systems. Playing back an Properly and HQ encoded SVCD will look much better on a good quality Television and will look as good if not better then an 700-800mb properly encoded DivX file on a computer monitor. Now, DivX files are also alot more CPU intensive to play back then an MPEG 1 or 2 File.

What media are you using for your VCD/SVCDS? Some players wont play media from CDRW, yet play them from CDR, and vise versa. Test a movie out on 1 of those forms of media, whichever plays the video back, is the media to use.

My DVD Player supports both CDR and RW aswell as MP3 playback I guess I got a nice player

[MiniCooper]

I use CD-R discs, but the DVD can't play them anyway

[mdm]

If you want your movies to be the best possible quality (from DV), then get a DVD burner and burn them as DVDs! There is no reduction in resolution and you can use bitrates in the 9k range.