Movie degrades with artifacts on DVD burn

[TuckerdogAVL]

I'm so tired. How do I get a high quality HD recording onto a standard DVD. I don't expect it to be Blu-Ray. I do expect it not to have artifacts, blurred background, "barber pole" artifacts. I read somewhere to save in "media browser" instead of directly to iDVD when exporting (Share) from iMOVIe. I have now burned tried 2 different "saves" (Shares) and each time took over 6 hours to render, then 3+hrs to burn. It is now burning again (Estimated time, 3 hours 45 mins). Please share the secret.

The other secret I need to know: How do I find the versions that are crappy and I don't want to save? How do I know where they are? Searching for .proj is no help. Searching the name of the file shows me 3 versions with dates (and no sizes, what's up with that?) WHich can I remove?

When I am in iDVD and I'm dropping zone the movie into the drop zone, there are two films there: 1280 x 720 called 720 and 960 x 540 called "Large" I rememeber I saved it the first time as LARGE? So, I chose the 1280 version for this burn. How do I know I really chose it? I dragged it into the place on the Theme where I have a button to "play movie" and it appeared to be highlighted, but when I started to create chapters for scenes, the OTHER film appears to be highlighted?

Can anyone share with me steps so when I have to do this again, (unless by some miracle I did it right accidentally this time, third time's the charm), I can eliminate the correct old files, and see how to chose the files the first time, since each burn takes a third of a day?

Thanks in again. I'm really tired.

 

[MisterMe]

You need to understand that the resolution of STB playable DVD is 720x480. Whether 4:3 or 16:9, DVD pixels are non-square. It is possible to store high pixel-density h.264 in the same space as a standard DVD.

 

[TuckerdogAVL]

You need to understand that the resolution of STB playable DVD is 720x480. Whether 4:3 or 16:9, DVD pixels are non-square. It is possible to store high pixel-density h.264 in the same space as a standard DVD.

Here's a solution that I did. An answer. Step by step. I'll post the other questions one at a time to see if there are answers to those as well.

Using iMovie 09 and iDVD 09.

Notes: Do NOT choose iDVD when asked where to SHARE or EXPORT, even though these are logical. If you do, your burn will look crappy when you play it back on a HD tv. Save yourself the 12+hours I spent learning this over 2 days.

iMovie
(Be sure and note EXACTLY what you called the movie because you will need to find it later. Try to make the name as unique as possible, dates, times, version as you may not be able to easily find it.)

Share>Media Browser
Choose HD 1280 x 720>Publish
Wait.......

Launch iDVD
Open New Project, Name it.
Choose a Theme
On the right hand side you'll see THEMES - BUTTONS - MEDIA
Choose Media

Now, here's where it is tricky.
Find your movie.
I"ll wait.....

Now, in my case I had TWO choices (versions) of the SAME movie, named the same thing. (OOOPS). Don't be mislead by what you see here. If you choose the wrong one, you won't know it's the wrong one for at least 2 1/2 hrs and 10gb later.

One was called "LARGE" the other "720p" But looking closely I see the size of LARGE is 3GB. The 720p is 7.9GB. Larger means better quality, so choose the one that is better quality if you have more than one version because you've tried to do this a couple times like I did. Can't tell you how to get rid of the other one yet. I think you have to just go and buy an external hard drive once the computer is filled with files you want to get rid of but can't because it's a mystery where they are. And remember, since you can't see the size when you use "search" and these are both versions of the same named film, you can't be sure your eliminating the one you want to eliminate.


Build your scene selections as you normally would.

Then simply burn to the DVD now and wait until cooked.

The quality of the DVD was as good as a commercial DVD placed on an HD TV. The menu is soft though; don't know why that happened and will play with it a little more, but the quality of the movie is superb for standard DVD on an HD TV.

Now....let's see if we can not reclaim the 20 gb from the 3 burns that didn't go well.