Best file output format 4 DVDs with MSPro?

[Marvelator]

MURC'ers,
I'm hope you can shed some light on the best file format to save a MediaStudio Pro 6.5 project in for output to a DVD+R or RW for viewing on a stand-alone DVD player/TV (US NTSC). I have burned a couple of DVDs and the picture quality looks outstanding, but motion (snowboarding) looks bejiggity. I have a Sony 120A DVD burner with MSP6.51a, with the DVD plug-in as well as NEO DVD4.0 std and the results seem the same.
What format should I save the project output in? (source files comprising mostly of good looking (smooth) 704X452 MatroxJPEG *.avi)
Should the "create video file" be:
File Type *.mpg
Options:
Field Order A , B?
740x480
29.97fps
Compression? MPEG-2? NTSC DVD?
Constant Bit Rate 6000kbs?

Also, should the edit file format be the same?

I've been on a 2 year path to ultimate video editing and archival I have most of the tools I think I need. I can almost taste success, help!

Andrew

[Ted222]

Substiture PICVideo for "good looking (smooth) 704X452 MatroxJPEG *.avi" and I think you will be pleased.

Ted

[Peter B]

or HuffYUV, though you will need fast hard drives with lots of space and a third party app to capture with Matrox card, suggest, AVI_IO as it seemlessly captures large files if you are using FAT drives.

You may think the MJPEG is good but PICVideo or HuffYUV will be a vast improvment, brighter colours, crisp outlines etc (in comparison)

[Marvelator]

Thanks for the info, I will try those. I should have the speed, Windows XP w/ Athlon 1.3Ghz and 2 30GB 7200RPM drives in a striping RAID NTFS (OS on separate 7.2K drive). I think I was hoping to avoid recapturing, but I think that may be the best option in the end. I am about to embark on a mission to transfer a ton of 8mm film and its good to know this now.

What about creating the video file to burn to DVD, are those codecs HuffYUV and PICvideo directly burnable i.e. when selected by a program like NeoDVD or the Mediasutdio Pro 6.5 DVD plug-in? Or should I cough up a few more bucks and get something like Ulead Movie Factor or something? Suggestions?

Thanks,
Andrew

[Peter B]

I'm not sure what you mean by directly burnable, but these are editing/capture codecs that create very very large high quality files and cannot be used on DVDs as playback, but can be encoded from the timeline in MSP.

I not sure what the encoding options are with MSP now, I always thought the Ligos MPEG encoders were crap and have alwasy used TMPGenc. I belive the newest Main Concept encoder with the latest version of MSP is not to bad, but I have never used it so can't really comment. Note using TMPGenc requires rendering a new file from MSP and then encoding as MSP cannot frame serve, but there is a beta frame server being trialed I believe.

Given your low space I would add a 80GB HDD to you specs if planing the TMPGenc route, I belive (and many others do too) this is the best MPEG encoder for quality (though not speed, Cinemacraft MPEG encoder produces a similar quality, much faster but has a ridiculus expensive price and much less options)