[Edited_editor]

Vincent, you are supremely wise. Thanks for all the help.

[Edited_editor]

Vincent, you really know your stuff. The AVI export was defaulting to Cinepak, and it was re-compressing.

I have it exporting again as I type, with your suggested settings, but I only wish I had asked about Keyframe and Rendering settings. I checked Optomize Stills and chose No Fields (Progressive Scan). Are these the best options for a project that is combination stills/animated stills/video?

[Edited_editor]

Thanks, Vincent, for your advice.

I just tried exporting it as an AVI instead of a DV AVI, and the plain AVI is a smaller file and has worse visual quality. That’s exactly contrary to your advice. Hmmmm. What’s going on here? The DV AVI file size is 5.4 GBs, and the AVI is 4.1 GBs.

BUT…

When the plain AVI is burned onto a DVD as video (MPEG2), the stills behave just as they do in my Premiere sequence.

So to recap:

DV AVI (looks better, bigger file size)
Premiere sequence: Stills are fine
Playback when exported: Stills are fine
Burned to DVD: Stills are all #@*#%& screwed up!

AVI (looks worse, smaller file size)
Premiere sequence: Stills are fine
Playback when exported: Stills are fine
Burned to DVD: Stills are fine