Resolution woes

[sambucadog]

I'm having some final resolution problems. My project consists of mostly jpg's (some with pan/zoom, some static, some with painting creator effects) taken with a 12 megapixel camera and about 4 or 5 short (under a minute) video clips taken with the same camera mixed in. Final output will be to DVD and sent to various people in the US, Scotland and Greece. I don't know whether they will be viewed on PC or through DVD player, but I'm pretty sure it won't be Blue Ray.

Project length: 41 minutes
Project settings:
NTSC (I think most DVD players and computers can handle this, no?)
4:3
Resampling quality BEST
Keep aspect ratio
Anti flicker off
Smart Render off
Frame based
Compression Variable
Video Data Rate 9000

I created Video File using project settings, the quality is very mediocre, titles not sharp, jpg's fuzzy. But it plays through OK. Just looks low quality. (viewed on PC)

Created a Video File using HDV 1080i for HDV and the titles and jpgs look really great resolution wise, video clips not good at all, and the aspect ratio is all over the place. I have painting creator "build" type segments that go from a jpg to a jpg with paint effect and the image jumps to a completely different size even though the painting creator clip is on the same image. (also viewed on PC)

I really don't want to loose the great quality of the titles and jpgs by making the video file using project settings. How should I tweak this to give me maximum quality without disturbing the aspect ratio? Can it be done?
Thanks in advance.

[Babble]

I also have some resolution issues. When making a video in the WMV HD720 or HD1080 formats the results are very low resolution. I contacted Corel because this is obviously a codec problem but they just referred me to the forum. I also tried to use the SP1 and SP2 updates because there is no way to tell if my X4 version is updated. These updates check and then go to finish while stating that it can't determine which which version is installed. Corel is a very frustrating company. Does anyone know how to tell if SP1 and 2 are installed? My version is 14.2.0.23

[Ken Berry]

Yes, that is the updated version number.

As for the WMV problem, have you installed the Windows Media Encoder Series two (from the Microsoft website)?

[sambucadog]

I have the current version as well. Any comments on my post Ken?

[aljimenez]

Two ways to get high quality.
1) Best way is to have your source with very high quality: high resolution, high frames per seconds (fps), high bandwidth (high Mbps-Megabits-per-seconds). Most cameras do not produce very high quality.

2)Then in VS, once you have your story ready to be written to DVD, or a file (Share), use the highest resolution, highest frame rate and highest Mbps in your output.

Problems: you cannot get high quality out of VS unless the source is as high or higher quality. You also have limitations on the medium that you are rendering. DVD's have limitations on resolution, frame-rate and Mbps. As you can see there is a lot of reading to do to get highest quality possible out of VS. I only have enough time to give you these summaries... Al

[sambucadog]

My project is 95% high res jpgs, 12 megapixel. The text I have no control over, it is determined by VS. As far as I can tell, everything I have set to the highest possible quality settings. A little fuzzy in the stills I can deal with, but the titles seem pretty bad and not as forgiving as the photos. Is the only way to get good titles out of VS is to render HD?