I'm having video quality issue on DVD playback. The screen is very grainy and has a perfect line of screen tear running horizontaly about 1/4 of the way up the screen from the bottom. The sound playback is perfect and the menu is fairly sharp but all of the video is terrible with what looks to me like a constant digital snow. It almost looks like the resolution is set way too low. In addition, the color is very washed out from the source tape. I was wondering if this is because when I captured the video from the source tape (Sony Handycam MiniDV 16:9), I selected mpeg2 so that it only took up about 1/3 of the disk space. Could this compression be the reason for the quality issues? I've looked at other topics on here that say the mpeg2 compression shouldn't degrade the video too much. I also saw a topic that said I should select interlaced instead of progressive for any source tape that is not progressively recorded.

When I play back only the captured video on Windows Media Player, it doesn't look nearly as bad as when it was converted onto the DVD. It also is bad quality on the MyDVD project previews so something happens to the quality from the captured source to when it's converted into a MyDVD project. I tried the disk in 2 different DVD players as well as my computer. All have the same terrible video quality. Is this just a case of poor capture quality or should simply changing some of the settings improve it?

Here's my settings: 16:9, Highest Quality, DVD+R DL, Progressive Scan, Hardware Render.

Should I try the following? 16:9, Highest Quality, Interlaced Scan, Software Render. (Because now I'm also getting the error at conversion during burn)

If that doesn't improve it, should I simpy recapture video from the source in the higher quality format?

Thank you for any assistance you can give me.

RM

Forgot to mention my computer setup.

AMR FX-53 processor, nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra AGP, 2GB RAM, Windows XP SP2

Capture that video via firewire, as an .avi file, even if it is huge. If you are running out of hard drive space, get another hard drive, with lots of room. I wouldn't go less than 320GB, now.

In MyDVD, use software render. It has worked better for folks who have an NVidia video card. I burned all of my videos, using software render, with my GT7900 card. I just pulled that card out last week, and put in an ATI based card. I haven't had time to do any video work with it, yet.

Also, make sure you update to the latest version of DirectX and update the drivers for your video card.

Thank you I will do that tomorrow. If all that doesn't improve the quality, I'll come back looking for more help.

Also, Firewire is the same thing as USB 2.0 stream right?

Absolutely Not!!!

Firewire (AKA 1394) was developed by Apple and has delivered its promises from day one! And that was many, many years ago.

USB on the other hand was developed my MS and has never failed to disappoint and fall short of its' promises…