Poor-quality final product with VS 9

[Pallara]

Hello all!

I am interested in purchasing VS 9 or 10 when it is released for use in my school. I downloaded the trial version of VS9 last night to see if it was appropriate for all my staff members. I have been playing around with it and really like it. However, I have created a video of a recent school camp and when I tried to burn a copy onto DVD, the quality was terrbile. It is extremly pixelated and "murky". I will try and detail what I have done and apologise in advance if it is long.

I captured my footage using USB streaming from a Sony Digital Handycam (DCR-TRV19E). The captured video quality was fantastic and I edited the footage into a 3 minute montage. I clicked on "Create Disc" and set it to DVD. I am in Australia, so I am using PAL. When I saw that the final product was of a very poor quality, I tried the DVD on 2 different DVD players and another computer... all with the same result. I burnt the file straight onto the harddrive (thinking that the problem may be the cheap DVDs that I purchased) however, the quality was still poor. I played around with some settings; changed from Pal to MPEG 2 and turned off the non-pixel rendering. I also changed the quality marker to 100. All to no avail.

Can anyone help me with improving the quality of my DVD?


Jo

[GeorgeW]

Hello Jo, and welcome to the Forums

I believe the problem is in your original capture using the USB Streaming function of your camcorder. If this does not put dv .avi videos onto your computer, then you have already lost alot of the original video quality by downconverting it to a much higher compressed format.

To get the highest quality footage, you want to transfer the original video in its native format -- dv .avi videos (this will require about 13 gigabytes per hour). If you use Firewire connected to your camcorder and a firewire port on your computer, you can transfer the dv .avi without any loss in video quality. You would then edit the dv .avi, and in then convert to .mpeg for Authoring your DVD. This would require you to have a firewire port on your computer (check if you already have one -- if not, you can add a firewire pci card for about $20.00 -- sometimes less after rebates -- get one that comes with a firewire cable that will allow you to connect your camcorder to the card -- some ends have 4-pins and some have 6-pins).

NOTE: some newer model camcorders allow dv tranfer over USB, but I don't think your model has that function -- the USB is usually for low-resolution streaming or transferring the still pictures. Check your Sony manual to find out for sure what you can transfer via USB.

There is a Sticky post at the top of this forum -- have a look at it for some good pointers on how to create a dvd from start-to-finish.

Regards,
George

[FASTEDDIE]

I DO NOT YET OWN THIS SOFTWARE, INFACT I AM FIRST LOOKING TO BUY A CAMERA. I AM LEANING TOWARDS A VERY SMALL CAMERA, SANYO XACTI VPC-C40 4MP MPEG4 DIGITAL CAMCORDER. IF ANYONE HAS EXPERIENCE WITH THIS OR A LIKE CAMERA USING THIS SOFTWARE, I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW YOUR EXPERIENCES.
IN A MESSAGE I READ THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT POOR VIDEO AFTER BURNING DVD, AND TO USE THE FIREWIRE PORT. I DO HAVE A FIREWIRE PORT, BUT THIS CAMERA DOES NOT. IT DOES HAVE USB OUT AND ALSO S VIDEO OUT. MY COMPUTER HAS BOTH USB IN AND S VIDEO IN, DO YOU THINK THIS WILL DO THE JOB? OF COURSE (BESIDES HAVE A DECENT BURN), WILL I BE ABLE TO VIEW ON MY DVD AND OR MAKE COPIES FOR FRIENDS TO VIEW ON THEIR DVD's. IS THIS A HIT AND MISS AS TO IF THE FINIAL COPIES WILL PLAY CORRECTLY? ANY INFORMATION WILL BE GREAT. THANKS ED

[sjj1805]

fastEddie
Please do not double post. Your query is being dealt with in this thread
http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/viewtopic.php?t=12868