AVI to VCD with TMPGEnc quality not so good

[dazzer]

Hi All I am having trouble converting DV for use on my LG DVD DV4941P the quality of the image is rubbish. When I make a MPEG2 which on my PC looks great my DVD player wont play it is there a setting can can change on my LG so it will play my DVDs as MPEG2 any body got any ideas the pics are really pixelly.

Process
Capture with an ulead fire wire from a sony DV camera, image quality on PC great.
(p4 500mb ram, 80gig HD 7200rpi gforce graphics)
Using TMPGEnc to RIP to meg1 or 2 (2 will not play on my LG DVD DV4941P )
Quality set to HQ in TMPGEnc
Using nero 5.5 to cut CD

Problems
Pixels around moving objects or people a sort of Haze
AVI is captures from a NTSC and saved as PAL.
Jittery movement

Any suggestion greatly appricated

[Dave B]

Check your player against the DVD compatibility list on this site as it probably doesn't support SVCD (MPEG-2).

The pixelation and halos you are seeing in your video sound like MPEG artifacts. These artifacts are produced when the video bitrate is not high enough for the amount of motion in the film. You may like to try upping the bitrate - this can be done by loading the unlock.mcf template into TMPGEnc and then increasing the bitrate value above 1150. This will mean that you will produce an instandard VCD (an XVCD) but it may still play correctly on your DVD player.

Another approach to achieve less pixilation is to "soften" the video. This will produce video that the MPEG algorithm can process more efficiently. For starters, try ticking the "Noise Reduction" filter within TMPGEnc and see if you like the resultant video better.

I suspect that your jittery movement problem is caused by the NTSC -> PAL conversion taking place. You should avoid this sort of conversion if possible but there is a good guide available on this site (link below) if it is absolutely necessary.

http://forum.vcdhelp.com/userguides/78178.php