Help with getting high quality DVDs...

Hello,



I know enough about video editing with PE7 to be dangerous, and was hoping someone could help me out.



My question is regarding getting the highest quality standard DVD from AVCHD footage. I have a Sony HDR-SR12 camcorder recording in AVCHD. I am editing footage natively in AVCHD with PE7 on a quad core system. No problem with that. However, when I export to standard DVD the quality of the video goes down drastically. (Yes, I know burning to Blu-ray would give me higher quality, but I am giving this DVD to a friend who doesn't have Blu-ray).



So far I have tried starting my project in both HD 1080i 30 5.1 channel:



General

Editing mode: HDV 1080i

Timebase: 29.97 fps



Video Settings

Frame size: 1440h 1080v (1.333)

Frame rate: 29.97 frames/second

Pixel Aspect Ratio: HD Anamorphic 1080 (1.333)



and Full HD 1080i 30 5.1 channel:



General

Editing mode: HD 1080i

Timebase: 29.97 fps



Video Settings

Frame size: 1920h 1080v (1.000)

Frame rate: 29.97 frames/second

Pixel Aspect Ratio: Square Pixels (1.0)



But I see no discernable difference in the quality of my output onto DVD.



This is where my knowledge is lacking...how can I get the best quality output from my AVCHD onto a standard DVD? Is there some format I can convert to first, and then burn to DVD? Also, I am willing to break the footage into a couple of DVDs to improve the quality, but I don't know how or what to do for that.



My footage looks REALLY great when viewing from the HDR-SR12 direct to HD TV with HDMI cable, but not very good on the DVD. My footage is of a ballet recital, and I lose definition in the faces, costumes, etc on the DVD output.



Any help is appreciated! Thanks!



Gina
Help with getting high quality DVDs...
The high definition project preset you start with will not affect the output when burnt to DVD. How long is your video... for best quality you can get about one hour on a DVD.



If your DVD is under an hour and you still have quality issues you could try bringing your AVCHD footage into a standard definition widescreen project. See if when burnt this gives a better result.
Help with getting high quality DVDs...
Paul LS -



My DVD is 1 hour 8 minutes long. To make sure I understand you correctly, your suggestion is to start a New Project and at the Setup option choose the Preset: NTSC --%26gt; DV --%26gt; Widescreen 48kHz?



Thanks!



Gina

Well, cant quarentee that the quality will be any better. But yes that is what I meant.

Some time back there was much discussion about the problem of making high quality standard definition movies, such as DVDs, from high definition source material using Premiere Elements (and Premiere Pro too for that matter). Has anything changed? People with a HDV camera were advised to convert to DV in the camera, and capture and edit in standard definition, for instance.

With AVCHD you cant down convert in the camcorder. You have to capture to your harddrive as AVCHD or generally the software that comes with the camcorder will convert to standard definition MPEG2.

So to get a higher quality DVD would I be better off converting my AVCHD footage to MPEG-2 first? My Sony camcorder comes with software (Picture Motion Browser) that will do the conversion.

One thing, when you say the quality goes down drastically what do you mean? Can you describe it? Is it pixelization or is it jerkyness during motion in the video?



Maybe it is that you are comparing your DVD to the HD footage, you are bound to loose some resolution when converting to a standard definition format.



The problem with converting to MEG2 is that MPEG2 is a compressed format, when you burn to DVD the MPEG2 will be re-rendered by PE7 and further reduce quality. If possible it is better to convert from the HD format to DVD in one step.

I would say the reduction in quality is due to pixelization. There is not jerkiness during motion of the video.



It is just that the dancers faces, costumes, scenery are less defined than on my HD footage run straight through to the HDTV. Maybe that's just the result and I can't get any better with the DVD and my camera...

A standard definition DVD will be scaled up on your HDTV and will lose a lot of quality... especially on an LCD or Plasma screen. You could try an upscaling DVD player if you had access to one.