Hi

I am new to all this, so please forgive any stupid questions.

I have a Canon MV600i and am using Ulead's Video Studeo 7 and firewire to transfer video to my PC (and then to DVD). I have an Athlon 64 3500+ system with 2 gig RAM, SATA, XP Pro SP1.

I am finding that the quality of the mpegs I get on the PC is poor and then poorer still once burned to DVD. There is a fair amount of pixelation and it looks (to me) as if I were filming through a "frosted glass" filter (of course, I am not). I have seen a friends efforts using an analogue camera and Premiere Pro 1.5 (I think) and the quality is significantly better than my efforts, so I am sure I am doing things wrong.

The settings I use are more or less the defaults in VS7, except that I try to use DVD rather than SVCD, etc, where possible.

Here are some file properties from one of my efforts:
PAL (25 fps)
MPEG files
24 Bits, 720 x 576, 25 fps
Field Order A
(DVD-PAL), 4:3
Video data rate: Variable (Max. 8000 kbps)
LPCM Audio, 48 KHz, Stereo

I find that the quality seems poor on the PC, worse still on DVD. I have footage outdoors and indoors, the former being better than the latter (presumably due to better light) but still not "great".

In case it helps, I have included a frame grab of the sort of output I am currently able to achieve.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone may be able to offer