VideoStudio Pro X6 vs X8 DVD quality worse

[RobP_V8_Guy]

First off, this is my first post and hopefully posting this in the right place.

So I just finished authoring some video and making DVD's using Videostudio Pro X6 for a dance recital I had recorded last week. Video quality came out "fair" on the DVD. 2 days ago, I decided to upgrade to X8. I backed up all of my projects to another folder on my computer. I then uninstalled X6 and installed X8. Today, I had a request for a short 6 min clip as a demo for someone. However, now the DVD quality has gone horribly bad. It's very blocky and jagged. The faces are hardly recognizable. I've tried messing around with the settings and cant get it to the same quality it was on X6. Ive changed everything from constant bitrate to variable, both at the highest bitrate the program would allow me to, 8264 kbps. Any help would be appreciated. Thank You. Video Information below.

I have also played around with upper, lower and frame based settings.

* My computer
Windows 8.1 32 bit
Intel i7 4790k
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750

* Camera
Sony HandyCam
HDR-PJ670

* Video file (specs using Windows and right clicking on the video file and going to details)
Width........... 1920
Height.......... 1080
Data Rate...... 26295 kbps
Total Bitrate.. 26743 kbps
Frame Rate... 59 per sec

* Corel Visual Studio X8 output to DVD
MPEG files
24 bits, 720 x 480, 29.97 fps
Upper Field First
(DVD-NTSC), 4:3
Video data rate: Variable (Max. 8264 kbps)
LPCM Audio, 48000 Hz, Stereo
2 Pass Encoding

[Ken Berry]

Welcome to the forums! I just wish it had been under better circumstances!

The first thing I notice is that you are going from high definition AVCHD mpeg-4 to standard def mpeg-2 for DVDs. So inevitably there is going to be a heck of a quality loss in that down-conversion. But I guess you knew that from your previous experience with X6. But a couple of extra comments might be useful. First off, your original video appears to have been filmed using the full progressive mode using NTSC's 59.94 (or 60) full frames per second. In high def terms this would be excellent for your type of dance video. But going down to standard def mpeg-2 for DVDs, you are limited by the international DVD standard, which for NTSC allows only a maximum of 29.97 full frames per second or 59.94 half (interlaced) frames per second. In other words, during the down-conversion, half of your frames are lost. So that is another significant quality loss.

But the real thing that puzzles me is why you are using 4:3 aspect ratio instead of 16:9 which is what your original video uses. Using 4:3 would squish the image, adding further degradation to the final quality.

Otherwise, your DVD Properties appear to be pretty standard. One thing you might want to try, though, is instead of using Upper Field First, try 29.97 fps Frame Based instead. And just in case you were not doing so already, first convert your project to a DVD-compatible mpeg-2, rather than simply burning the project straight to DVD. That way you can first test the new video to see if the pixellation has gone or reduced.

As a footnote, I might just note that the name of the program is Video Studio, not Visual Studio. The latter is a program produced by Microsoft and used for the development of software.

[RobP_V8_Guy]

Thanks for the replay Ken. I think my brain is half fired at this point in time after reading several other people with similar issues. I did mean video Studio, thanks.

I do understand that quality will be lost when going to dvd, I'm ok with that. The DVD that I created with x6 is better than when trying to repoduce it with x8. The difference is night and day....that bad! I could upload a screen shot of the 2 if that helps.

I did change the aspect ratio to 16:9 and frame based as you had suggested with the same poor quality result.

Orignally, I had just opened my project that I had saved with x6 and just deleted what I didnt need. I had tried opening a new project as you had mentioned. I select "DVD" for the project format and these are the settings that automatically shown...

MPEG files
24 bits, 720 x 480, 29.97 fps
Upper Field First
(DVD-NTSC), 16:9
Video data rate: Variable (Max. 8000 kbps)
LPCM Audio, 48000 Hz, Stereo

I had changed those settings to "frame based" and set the quality to "100". I could try to also change the settings to "avi". I understand it's just the container changing, but not sure if anything else would.

[asik1]

2 cents,
There was no need to uninstall X6, you can keep the two side by side.