I'm wondering why I get pixelation when I encode my final video to DVD. I've searched around in the forums, and I've seen people say if you have crap going in you're going to get the same coming out. However I'm using a Sony DCR-HC52, among using other digital cameras. Transfering video using a DV / Firewire card. I get the same results with any of the cameras I have tried.

I can use the same camera, connect it directly to my Sony DVD recorder using the DV connection, and the video quality is much better than what is produced with pinnacle.

Where is the loss in quality coming from? I've played around with the dvd quality settings. Did a few short sample clips, about 5 minutes long. Set the quality to best. Compression shouldn't be the issue.

Does the video card matter? I'm just using the integrated video card (Intel 82865G) that came with my Dell Optiplex GX270 2GB of ram 2.8GHZ Processor.

The pixelation is most obvious when played on a TV or blown up to full screen on the computer. Especially in darker environments. I'm not dropping frames or losing sync with audio.

 I've tried progressive encoding and without.

What am I missing?

DFWSBR:

I'm wondering why I get pixelation when I encode my final video to DVD. I've searched around in the forums, and I've seen people say if you have crap going in you're going to get the same coming out. However I'm using a Sony DCR-HC52, among using other digital cameras. Transfering video using a DV / Firewire card. I get the same results with any of the cameras I have tried.

I can use the same camera, connect it directly to my Sony DVD recorder using the DV connection, and the video quality is much better than what is produced with pinnacle.

Where is the loss in quality coming from? I've played around with the dvd quality settings. Did a few short sample clips, about 5 minutes long. Set the quality to best. Compression shouldn't be the issue.

Does the video card matter? I'm just using the integrated video card (Intel 82865G) that came with my Dell Optiplex GX270 2GB of ram 2.8GHZ Processor.

The pixelation is most obvious when played on a TV or blown up to full screen on the computer. Especially in darker environments. I'm not dropping frames or losing sync with audio.

 I've tried progressive encoding and without.

What am I missing?

Sorry for the clarification, but do you see the pixelation on the preview or on the final export while being viewed on a tv through a DVD player.

The video looks decent on the preview. Once exported, the detail goes to crap. However the preview isn't full screen. When I make it full screen, it does look better than the final product, but its not perfect either.

 I also noticed the other day, text with color and outlines turn out like crap. However if I use standard text, no outline or shadow, its clear. Strange thing is the outlined text looks perfect in the preview.

Thanks for responding. I've been using pinnacle since ver 9. Very easy to use. I hope I can get this figured out soon!

Try opening your project, go to Make Movie and then to make tape set your output type and Device to VGA Display and Click create, this should be a better way to preview your final output without the long wait. See how it turns out in this preview.