Hi all,
It's taken me a while to find you, wondered it you can help. I've just built my system to start doing some home video editing. As I'm new to this I was wondering if I have the process right at all, because my end product looked very grainy on the TV. My camera is a Sony DVR (similar to http://products.sony.co.uk/productde...?id=11_61_5911 ). I output the video to my computer using the USB cable. My computer is an AMD XP3000, 1GB RAM, 250 SATA HDD, Radeon 9800XT Video card. I use Pinnacle 8se to get the video footage and do all the editing. When I finish (including transitions etc), I use Pinnacle to write to a DVD.

The problem is when I look at it on the TV, it looks blocky and not completely the 25 fps for PAL. I'm not sure where to even start to improve this or if this is as good as it gets.

Can you help me improve my DVD or point me in the right direction?

Thanks in advance....

A first step would be to use the i.LINK (DV OUT) port on you cam, rather than USB. This will improve your input video quality.

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Thanks Marc, that was a fast reply and a great piece of advice. I've noticed a significant difference on the screen alone (along with sound). I noticed your response to another persons question on widescreen captures and you mentioned to use TMPGEnc v2.521.58.169. Can I ask you 3 questions:

When getting the video from my camera (with the ilink !!) should I use the DV quality or MPeg2 quality option (Pinnacle 8se)? Ultimately I will burn to DVD but I wondered if there was a difference. I think the DV quality looks better on the computer screen.

Secondly, should I use the TMPGEnc and then re-use the end product to edit with in Pinnacle? Then write to DVD. Is this the best process?

Finally, how do I know what frame rate my video is after I upload to my computer?

Sorry if these questions are rather basic...

Thanks again !!

If you're using an ilink connection, transfering to DV will be a lossless process - i.e the picture you get on you cam will be EXACTLY the same as the video transferred. If you're going to edit the footage and want the best quality, go for this option. If you don't have much hard drive space and you're not editing, go for the MPEG option.

If you want to use TMPGenc, edit your footage in Pinnacle, output as a DV filem then use TMPGEnc to convert to MPEG.

If you're from the UK, you're frame rate will be 25fps.

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Hey Marc,

When you say output it as a DV file, I assume thats and AVI file? I encoded this with TMPGenc and it gave me two files; a .m2v file and .wav file (sound and video). Is this correct? I know you said convert it to an MPEG file using TMP, but I'm not sure if I'm suppose to have two seperate files.

If so, do I just burn these onto a DVD disc?

Cheers again !

I actually saw one of your previous posts to help me with this :http://www.videoeditingforums.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=101 Very valuable information....

I have a couple of final questions though for my premier !!!

When I output to from Pinnacle should I output to AVI, then convert to MPEG using TMPGenc? If so should I output to a seperate sound and video file or a single MPEG file? Then use Ifoedit for DVD files and then burn to CD

OR

Output from Pinnacle to an MPEG file, use Ifoedit to create DVD files, then burn?

I think I have the process down with my questions above....look forward to hearing your answer so as I can complete the first DVD !!! Thanks Marc.