In the chain between your camera and the DVD there are several moments where things can go wrong.
Note that if you have a HD camera which is likely 1920x1080, the regular DVD file format set to high quality goes as far as 720x480 60 frames. Which is much lower than the HD input?
Maybe good to help us understand the specifics of the steps are you take?
- What is the format of the video (file) you get from the Sony camera?
- What are the project settings you have used in PD 20 (framerate etc.)
- Let us know what the settings are for the preferences for producing and for hardware acceleration, they might matter too.
- What kind of editing did you do, color changes, effects etc.
- What are the settings you use to output the video?
- Is there an intermediate step, if so what format specs are you using?
- If directly to DVD from PD20, what are the parameters you apply
- And last but not least: how do you show the DVD, is that per PC (which software) or on a DVD player?

Sharing the result may give us an idea of your problem but the above may help us pointing into the right direction.
If you can then maybe add a screen recording showing a bit of the original and a bit of the result? Maybe use VLC to show the clips on you PC?

Quote In the chain between your camera and the DVD there are several moments where things can go wrong.
Note that if you have a HD camera which is likely 1920x1080, the regular DVD file format set to high quality goes as far as 720x480 60 frames. Which is much lower than the HD input?
Maybe good to help us understand the specifics of the steps are you take?
- What is the format of the video (file) you get from the Sony camera?
- What are the project settings you have used in PD 20 (framerate etc.)
- Let us know what the settings are for the preferences for producing and for hardware acceleration, they might matter too.
- What kind of editing did you do, color changes, effects etc.
- What are the settings you use to output the video?
- Is there an intermediate step, if so what format specs are you using?
- If directly to DVD from PD20, what are the parameters you apply
- And last but not least: how do you show the DVD, is that per PC (which software) or on a DVD player?

Sharing the result may give us an idea of your problem but the above may help us pointing into the right direction.
If you can then maybe add a screen recording showing a bit of the original and a bit of the result? Maybe use VLC to show the clips on you PC?

Miami, Saturday July 16

Hi,

Thanks for your involvment in this

I will send all details this afternoon sometimes as I have to go out now.
I am filming in 30P XVAC S HD with the Sony cam

I make a DVD to watch on a DVD player

I do not do any kind of editing (color changes, image changes) I use what I have filmed, I cut some bad parts and add sound then produce.

More info later on.
Thank you

Zantafio9741

Quote


Miami, Saturday July 16

Hi,

Thanks for your involvment in this

I will send all details this afternoon sometimes as I have to go out now.
I am filming in 30P XVAC S HD with the Sony cam

I make a DVD to watch on a DVD player

I do not do any kind of editing (color changes, image changes) I use what I have filmed, I cut some bad parts and add sound then produce.

More info later on.
Thank you

Zantafio9741

To WARRY

Sorry, I got back home much later than planned

Here is some more info

Production is
2D Standard
H254AVC
MPEG 4 640 x 480 24P
DVD is NTSC

I could send aclip where you can see the bad images and the original as well.

Thank You

Hi Zantafio,

I've read all that you have said and I feel it could be your DVD writer. Its just a hunch but as was said earlier there are a lot of stages between the editor and the final copy to a dvd. I have done a lot of transfers to DVD and PD 20 and my writer have all done a great job. Borrow another writer and try again --- you never know.
Murray Australia

Quote
To WARRY
Production is
2D Standard
H254AVC
MPEG 4 640 x 480 24P
DVD is NTSC

I could send aclip where you can see the bad images and the original as well.

Thank You

Hi,
Before you share example clips, maybe look at this:
From what you write I understand that you first produce H264AVC MPEG 4 640 x 480 24P files before you write a DVD? What kind of DVD software do you use?
My feeling is that the degradation of the video clips might be caused by the steps in between. If you produce to MP4 640x480 from HD original (1920x1080) then there is a lot of degradation already. The next step would be to DVD, which has MPEG2 as standard (720x480). I can imagine that coming from 640x480 to 720x480 is less than coming from 1920x1080 to 720x480. This two steps conversion (from original to MP4 and from mp4 to MPEG2) will not improve the quality.
It depends also a bit on the kind of DVD writing software you use; it has to convert the mp4 files into the DVD standard MPEG2 format. (And maybe on the DVD writer itself as Muzza suggests, but if the DVD itself pays well, then I assume that the DVD is technically correct).
So my suggestion would be:
Try (maybe with a small clip first to save time), to produce a clip with PD using the MPEG2 and select from the options list: DVD HQ 720x480/60i (8 Mbps).
After this clip has been produced look at the quality of the production on your PC. It cannot be as good as the original clip because that was true HD, but it should be better than the 640x480 you used before? Maybe check this with the VLC video media player. (You can both look at the original and the produced file to see the difference).
Should the produced file already be showing problems then we have to look at the PD process. If the newly produced file is already better, then look at the next step, the production of the DVD. If you feel comfortable enough write this test file to DVD and see what happens. My hunch is that the DVD should already produce better results because of the better in-between steps.
In the following stage, you might want to look at why using DVDs. From the above and your experience, it becomes clear that with DVD you can never get to the results of the original camera recordings, which is a shame. Maybe look at using Blu-ray, which can hold true HD format (if it should be a disk medium), or look at using YouTube, Vimeo and the like, to get to optimal results for your audience?
Looking forward to seeing your results.

You are mutilating your video.
DVD is 720x480.
Should be a 1 and done process, and 24p ain't helping.
Go direct from original video files, make your edits, and then
either produce a DVD from your timeline
or
a DVD folder
or
produce an Mpeg2 file, using the standard profiles available and burn that to DVD.
Only produce an MP4 for streaming, internet, devices.
I would suggest test renders that you can watch in VLC or other viewer or use RW discs
until you are happy with the outcome. HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
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