Thanks Walker and Robert, for the quick replies!
The preview quality setting is set to high.
Good idea, checking the aquarium footage.
It actually exhibits the opposite effect.
When I click on the thumbnail in the library area, it looks worse than if I click on the instance of it in the timeline....
This is the opposite of what I am experiencing with my high resolution screen captures.
When I watch them from the library they look just like the real thing.
When I watch them from the time line, it's actually harder to read the text and all lines are fuzzy.
I did notice that my aspect ratio is not 4:3 but 4.5:3 so I will try it with an actual 4:3 ratio and see if that helps.....
K, I'm back.
I tried it with a screen capture of 1280x960 (4:3) and it is at least a little better. It's still a fair quality loss from library to time line but less I believe.
Oh, and yes, the quality loss is also there in produced files as well as DVDs burned at HQ.
I burned a DVD stright from an AVI that was uncompressed and looked great in QT and Windows Player but the DVD played on teh same screen was very bad looking.
I'll play around a bit today and see if there's anything I can do.
Thanks again!