quality output is very poor.

[supermegaultra]

Hi there, have seen this issue arise a lot in many forums but am not sure if my case is the same..

I have 5 short animations that are exported at 1024 x 576 (16:9) and are encoded with the Xvid Mpeg4 codec. They display reasonably nice n sharp
and even when imported into DVD workshop 2 they show up pretty nicely.

After exporting the DVD workshop 2 project the menu and all files are fuzzy and not very good while playing back the file on PC as well as on tv.

Is there a different codec I should be using besides Xvid or is there something else I'm missing all together?!

Many thanks.

[sjj1805]

Xvid DivX and MPEG4 are highly compressed formats - more so than the MPEG2 format required to create the DVD VOB files.

I would advise that you convert them beforehand. There are a few programs listed here:
Free stuff for use with Ulead Products

[supermegaultra]

Damn I thought it'd be something difficult like that. I have just downloaded SUPER and am goign to try that. So your saying I should export the movies to mpeg2 before importing them into DVD workshop?

Forgot to mention, I am exporting from Macromedia Flash so is there anything I should know about that?

Cheers.

[DVDDoug]

To minimize quality loss, use a high MPEG-2 bitrate. Since you say "short" animations, you can probably get away with a bitrate of 8,000 kbps which should give you the best quality possible, given your source.

Converting it first should make it easier to work with, and may be faster. But, I would not expect it to improve video quality. This page has a chart that shows the proper MPEG-2 settings for DVD. (Scroll down the page a bit to see the chart.)

You are going to loose some quality. You are going from one lossy format to another lossy format, and you are reducing the resolution. (1024x576 is not DVD compliant.)

[heinz-oz]

Excellent link, Dough, that should be compulsory reading for anyone posting problems here for the first time.