Microsoft Vista Movie Maker gives best DVD quality

[quickfamily]

Hi,

I recently tried making DVDs from home movies using the free software that comes with Vista. Thinking that software that is paid for is better than free software I downloaded all the various trial versions of sub $100 video edit packages. To my surprise the final quality of the DVD from all of the trial software packages does not even come close to the quality of the Microsoft free software. I found the best way of comparing the final DVD quality was to make a slideshow of digital camera images. That way it is easy to study the picture on the screen and compare the picture quality.

My question is this;

Have I missed something obvious?

For example maybe the trial versions of the editing software are degraded to make you buy the full version. Maybe it is just that Sony, Cyberlink, Corel, Magix and the others spend all their time putting in features and do not concentrate on the software that does the final conversion to DVD. I'm not complaining that the free software is the best as it saves me money, I was just wondering if anyone else has found the same thing.

Thank you for any feedback.

Andy

[edDV]

How are you evaluating picture quality? On a computer display or from the completed DVD to a TV?

Are you exporting from MovieMaker to DVDMaker to make the DVD?

[quickfamily]

I am evaluating the picture quality on a TV.

Yes, I am exporting from MovieMaker to DVDMaker.

[jagabo]

Creating slideshows is not a good way to evaluate MPEG encoders -- unless you are only interested in stills. Most encoders are not optimized for that. Optimizing for stills is very different than optimizing for motion.

Want really great output from an MPEG encoder with stills? Use constant quality encoding with a high max bitrate (~9000 kbps) and a zero (or very low) minimum bitrate. Set the encoder at a high quality (or low quantizer) setting.

[edong]

Hi,

I recently tried making DVDs from home movies using the free software that comes with Vista. Thinking that software that is paid for is better than free software I downloaded all the various trial versions of sub $100 video edit packages. To my surprise the final quality of the DVD from all of the trial software packages does not even come close to the quality of the Microsoft free software.

I always use the Movie Maker in Vista Premium and created many DVD's from my Sony HD camcorder. I am very satisfied. It's very easy to use. The DVD quality is 'almost' as good as the MPEG-2 from the camcorder. Both are played in a PS3 on HDTV. I know they are of different resolutions. Maybe it's my eyes.

[quickfamily]

Okay, I found the obvious....

I went into my trial copy of Sony Vegas and found a render option between interlaced and progressive. The default was interlaced so I changed it to progressive and the final DVD quality became as good as the Microsoft DVDMaker.

What is the impact of doing this? Does it use more disk space on the DVD? Will it only play on a DVD player that can handle progressive files? In other words why do Sony default to the poor quality option?

Thank you.

Andy

[jagabo]

If your source is interlaced encode interlaced. If your source is progressive encode progressive. Maybe sony assumes most people will be starting with DV camcorder video which is usually interlaced.