There is a learning curve to using PowerDirector 8.

There are many options for the quality of Video output from PD8.

If you are creating SD Video to a DVD, you need your videos to be at least 4 Mbps and 720 x 480 pixels to get good DVDs. The lower your bit rate the worst your video looks.

Depending on your source of MP4 video (I have seen 500 Kbps) you can not improve on the original footage.

Best for DVDs is about 8 Mbps.
Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

My MP4 videos are 13959 kbps and 1920 x 1080 pixels.

The DVD HQ preset is as good as your going to get for regular DVD. It will diffidently look worse than your source video. DVD is a much lower resolution and bit rate so there is no getting around it. The encoder Hollywood uses is much more powerful so they can get better looking video at a lower bit rate but that is like comparing apples to oranges.

In the case of NTSC your converting your 1920x1080 video to 720x480. PAL is 720x576. Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

Thank you guys for your replyes. I am still confused. I have HD videos but it is impossible to burn in a excellent quality mode to reproduce them in my dvd player without distorsion o pixellated video. I tried selecting MPEG-2, AVI and H264 modes and the quality is similar( very poor). Maybe I should try to connect my video camcorder to a dvd recorder to get best video quality.
when I connect my camcorder to my LCD TV the video is excellent. That quality is what I would like to see in a dvd. Is that possible?

DVD is not High Definition. If you want HD you need Blue Ray or produce to a suitable format and use a separate video player. You could also produce AVCHD on a DVD and use a Blue Ray to play them but you will be limited to about 20 minutes. Western Digital sells a media player that other members of this forum use.

Finally, you are using PD Deluxe. This will prevent you from burning Blue Ray Disks. You will want to produce to either MPEG2 BD, AVCHD H264 at either 17 or 24 Mb/s, or a high definition WMV file. These formats will give you HD quality video files, but you will not be able to play any of them on a standard DVD player.

You may find this useful:

http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/9820.page

Also posted in the PD8 how to thread. Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

Thank you James for your help. So, what I have to do to get excellent quality video output is to buy and record on a Blue ray dvd or to buy the media player.

It depends on how you want to share your video. You can produce your edited videos in one of the file formats I suggested and play them on your computer or another computer if your home is networked or you can produce them in a suitable HD YouTube compliant format and share them on the web (use the video streaming site of your choice). Other options include using an external media player (you may need an external hard drive as well) or burning a blue ray disk (you will need the ultra edition and a blue ray burner).

In my case I setup a PC just for my home theater system which I use to watch HD videos either from my camera or which I stream from the web. You could do a similar thing with a laptop if you have one with a suitable CPU and graphics card. Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

Cyberlink does poorly with the typical interlaced format with standard def content. Pixelation is common, particularly when 'downconverting' from an HD source or zooming or cropping.

The workaround is to set up a custom profile for the 'produce' process. For Standard Definition 480 output, select progressive, not interlaced format. A sample rate of at least 8Mb is best as well, but the main solution is to ALWAYS use progressive format when producing SD content. This method produces clean looking videos while the default 'HQ' format for producing SD content is awful.

You will have to navigate a couple of menus for video and audio format when setting up your custom profile, but it is quite worth the trouble.

Then, burning the DVD from that progressive formatted file provides good SD quality as well. (Also note burning MUST be a two step process - produce the progressive file and remove the original video from the edit track; THEN reload the progressive video to the edit track and burn the disk.)

Overall Cyberlink has a number of nice features, but this is one user trick that helps solve this particular problem.

Did you by any chance use "Smart Fit", when burning to DVD? This is where you see the worst pixelation! I'll try playing with my produce profile, but I started having this issue in version 7 and I didn't see any other way.

I also started with HD video and ultimately found that when you have video that won't fit onto your media, it's better to burn to a location on your local drive, as a format like dual/double layer. Mount that, or use something capable of playing that folder like a DVD and view it. I'm betting, at this point, it's acceptable. Then, use something that specializes in compressing, like DVD Shrink, to burn it onto a standard DVD+-R. The output proved very acceptable for me.

You are correct that smartfit can sometimes cause problems. But my experience has been good with smartfit, provided my starting video is a 480 progressive format. I have done many single layer DVD's with smartfit, and they look quite acceptable.

I know that a 480 progressive format seems to cure a few ills. I suspect it is something in the way PD8 manages interlaced format.

When I was using roxio 2009, it did a much better job at 'smart fitting' and editing with interlaced format, but IMO not as good as PD8 with a progressive file with which to work. Whenever I am saving a 480 format file in PD8, I always choose the progressive option.