Horrible DVD video

[Steve Grisetti]

Can you be more specific with the "horrible quality" you're seeing, rick?

Are the colors wrong? Is the picture jiggly?

If it's just a resolution issue -- well, do remember that DVD's have less than 1/4 the resolution of hi-def, so it's impossible for a DVD to look exactly like a 1920x1080 video file.

Just to make sure we're comparing apples to apples, can you post a 640x480 screen capture of your original file and, alongside it, a screen capture of your DVD playing on your computer at the same size? That way we can see if your issue is more than just resolution.

[Chuck Engels]

From my little knowledge I understand that going from AVCHD to DVD involves compressing the video, which reduces picture quality, but what I get is horrible. I video tape my daughters basketball games and the faces are blurred out when I move them to DVD.

[rick818]

Just to try something, I output the video to flash and it looks great on all PC's. Again I realize that I'm not going to get HD quality video on 4.7 DVD's, but I should get something that represents exceptabl viewing.I'm really confused as to where to go.

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

[Barb O]

Rick,
My recommendation is that you try this suggestion from Chuck,

I do all of my High Def editing in Premiere Elements 10, no problems with burning the HD project to a SD DVD at all. The project could always be exported to DV-AVI directly from the Premiere Elements project, then check the quality of the AVI file in Media Player. That AVI file could them be used in a SD project and burned to a DVD if necessary.

It would be good to know if the exported AVI file would look like the DVD, worth a try.

green font used for emphasis on the export of your current project to DV-AVI . If the DV-AVI (SD) looks ok on computer playback, then take that DV-AVI in to an SD project and burn the SD DVD.

[Chuck Engels]

Yup, thanks Barb, that would be the next step

[rick818]

Thanks again,

Gonna try that today. Ill let you know how it turns out.

[Barb O]

Chuck,
Neither you or I have explicitly mentioned this -
I think that both when doing the export (Share) to DV-AVI from the PE AVCHD project and when choosing the PE Project Preset for new the standard definition project - the choice should be for DV Widescreen in order to keep the aspect ratio of the original video.

looking at Steve's book for PE 10 page 220, it seems that for the export, it should be
Share/Computer/AVI with a DV preset
for Widescreen

looking at Steve's book for PE 10 page 24-26, the new project preset should be
DV - Widescreen 48 kHz

Please confirm or correct my conclusions.

[Chuck Engels]

That is correct Barb
Thanks for adding the additional details.

[rick818]

Ok guys,

Somethings gotta be majorly wrong with either my settings or my camera. When I view in the PE 10 monitor screen I get excellent picture. I converted to DV widescreen as suggested and the picture there is horrible as well.

What am I doing wrong?

Liivingston2.jpg

DV Widescreen.jpg

[Steve Grisetti]

Something is definitely wrong somewhere. You should by no means see this kind of thing going from hi-def to DVD.

[Barb O]

Rick,

Sorry that I can not help you on why your conversion to DV-AVI did not give better results. Hopefully others on the forum can assist.

I do suggest that you also try the in camera conversion to SD. Then the quality of the SD MPEG-2 output from the camera conversion could be examined and compared to your current results.

[Chuck Engels]

I'm just afraid that the .MOD files from the in camera conversion will cause more problems ...

There has got to be an answer as to why this isn't working correctly.

Rick, if you export/share to a High Definition setting is there still quality loss like this?
You could try a AVCHD preset like H.264, maybe a 720p output as a test.
I seem to remember a similar problem but can't remember the details, will keep racking my brain...

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

Rick, just a thought.

Can you post a short (say twenty or thirty seconds) of your original source video in the muvipix gallery so that I (we) can download it and try some things out?

(Note to Ron - will the format be allowed as an upload?)

[Ron]

Shouldn't be a problem. We're still at 60MB (seems like a small figure, I know).

[rick818]

Sorry to sound like the newb that I am, but how do I upload the clips to the gallery. I've been trying but no luck so far. Do I need a new set of permissions to do that.

Rick