AVI to DVD bad picture quality (pixels)...pls help…

[tad]

Hi,

My first DVD project output has picture quality that is far from what I would expect.

Here are my specs and I hope that someone would help me solving this problem…

My source material has been captured from D8 Sony PAL camera via firewire to avi, and edited with Ulead Video Studio6. Source quality is very high with sharp and crisp image. Total project length was about 45-50 minutes.
I used same Ulead VS6 to create PAL DVD with default move making PAL DVD template (25 fps, variable bit rate at max 4800 or so). The mpeg2 file size after encoding was 1.9G. I burned the file by using A104. The final product on my TV screen however was quite bad in picture quality; especially fast moving scenes and light areas like blue skies are full of blocks/pixels.
In order to improve the outcome I tried to change the bit rate in VS6 PAL DVD template to a higher number (with assumption that higher bit rate = larger file = higher picture quality). I changed bit rate to 9000/coninious.
The file grew from 1.9G to 3.9G for the same project. I then played the mpeg file on my PC and noticed that picture quality seems to be the same as the previous lower bit rate file, picture has the same pixels in the very same areas.

I am hopeless and the only thing I think I will try is to perhaps capture D8 video directly to MPEG via VS6, or try to encode the project with some other tools Or perhaps I am using some wrong settings to begin with.

Anyway, I would really appreciate some advice.

Tad.

[Donny661]

did you perhaps when you raised the bitrate convert your .mpg you made earlier and not your .avi. Also, try using TMPG or CCE to convert your .avi instead, these programs should give you better quality. By the way, higher bitrate usually does equal better quality but if souce is crap or encoder is crap it may not help.

[rinkel]

Must agree, most authoring programs are CRAP encoders.
I always use tmpenc, it has some nice templates and is easy to use.
Make sure u set the field order right (i'm not sure but i thought is was top-field-first for DV, but i can look it up for you)
The gives me always nice results, but it takes about 7-10 hours to encode !!! so find something else to do in the meantime !


Rinkel