[Christopher Schrader]

Thanks everyone. This is all incredibly helpful. All things considered, it looks like investing in a new computer with a better processor might be a good starting point.

[Christopher Schrader]

Unfortunately I never completely solved this issue. I was told that some computers can upgrade the quality of the DVD depending on what type of graphics card they have, etc.

I do know that having a properly calibrated monitor is paramount if you want consistency between what you see on your computer and what winds up on your TV screen. Back when I originally started this thread I was using a brand new monitor that displayed everything just a little too dark. It has since been re-calibrated.

I’ve been using an HD camcorder and CS4 lately and haven’t had as much of an issue with it. I apologize for not providing a decent answer. Like I said, I really never found one. Best of luck. I know how frustrated you must feel.

[Christopher Schrader]

Vince, thanks for the response. I updated my original post to say that I had switched over to AVCHD preset. But the footage looks the same.

When I click interpret footage it says “Use Frame Rate from File: 29.9700”. How do I know if it’s 60i?

I was initially confused that perhaps the “cine mode” setting on the camera meant switching it to 24fps, but the frame rate is definitely 60i.

Thanks for your help. Like I said… whole new world for me.

[Christopher Schrader]

That is unbelievably helpful. Thank you. The only part that has me tripped up is how exactly to apply those setting in Premiere. I’m using 1.0 and when I go into the media encoder and select Quicktime I’m presented with a huge list of options and I’m not sure how to apply the settings you’ve specified above.

Under the Video tab I’ve got width, height, frame rate, key frame distance, and datarate.

Under General there are check boxes for Loop, Compress Movie Header, Autoplay, Hinted Movie, Make Movie Self Contained, Optimize Hints, and Video Hinter Track. Not sure which ones to select.

There’s also a drop down menu for RTP Payload Encoding and the pre-set is “Use Native Encoding if possible”. Then there’s Packet Size Limit, Packet Duration Limit, and Interval.

I have no idea what to do with any of this. Is there another way I should be exporting this?

[Christopher Schrader]

Thanks for your suggestions Jeff. When I say it looks better on the computer monitor, it’s not just one. I’ve watched the same DVD on at least four different computers and on all of them it looks exceptionally better.

I tried using avi files instead of mpeg and let Encore handle the encoding. It definitely used more disc space but the results were only marginally better. The whole film still looks too bright. There are artifacts all over the place. And one sequence in particular was color corrected quite a bit and looks amazing through the DVD-Rom drive on a computer but incredibly flat and dull on the TV.

I’ve got a Radeon 8500 series video card on the computer it was edited on. Not sure if there’s some sort of difference in the settings or what.

This is so incredibly frustrating. Even if I went in and adjusted the brightness levels it wouldn’t change the fact that the color corrected scene looks terrible. And then it would look too dark on a computer monitor.

If it were just my computer I’d say something was way off with the settings. But it’s every computer it’s played on that seems to improve the quality.

Someone told me DVD players automatically downgrade quality but this is ridiculous.