Video Quality is relative to bitrate or how much the source file gets compressed when rendering. Because DVD supports much higher bitrates the quality is so much better. If you have a DVD burner, no point in reading further. If you just have a CD burner there's a few suggestions.

As I've said several times, while VF can make a VCD it is limited to MPEG-1 and you're forced to used the included Ligos MPEG codec which has a low bitrate. The result will be at best medium quality VCD's.

One solution is to do all your editing in VF then output as a AVI and use TMPGEnc to improve the overall quality. You MUST change the default values TMPGEnc uses or you're doing the exercise for nothing.

First click on settings and change motion search percison from the default normal to high. Click on load and select the Video CD NTSC template. Try rendering a small sample of your video. You can hit stop anytime. At this point you're still rendering a basic MPEG-1 video.

If you still are not satisifed with the quality, load the same template, then click load again and then double click on the extra folder. Select unlock.mcf, click open. This will allow you to increase the bitrate settings. Click on settings, then the video tab. Change stream type from MPEG-1 to MPEG-2. Bump up the bitrate to maybe 1300 or so. Try rendering again. Note, you are now now making a XVCD. That just means it is none standard. Most DVD players will still play it. Nero should accept the file. Check quality.

Still not good enough, change Rate Control Mode from constant to 2pass variable bit rate. This will increase the bitrate during any "action" scenes and help reduce blockiness. Click on the settings tab just right of the Rate Control Mode window and experiment with different values. Keep MAX at 2300 or lower or otherwise most DVD Players won't be able to play the file correctly. Click load and load the SVCD template which will render as MPEG-2. Check Quality.

If still not satisifed and you see compression blocks in the finished video click on the Quantize Matrix tab and check soften block noise. You can also fine tune the video under the advanced tab. Double click on any of the filters. For example double clicking on Basic Color Correction you can adjust Gamma which unlike in Video Factory does not distort or cause any hue shift when using the HSL filter. That's about as far as you can take burning standard CD's. Several people have made custom templates. You can find them over at http://www.vcdhelp.com

Be aware as you increase bitrate you decrease compression, so the file size grows and you'll be able to get less on a CD. Doing 2pass VBR SVCD or XVCD I've managed to get about 40 minutes very good quality on a 700MB CD. The key to making "good" VCD's in starting with a good source file. If you are not starting with a file from a digital camera and you're trying to improve a MPG (what I typically do) first render it as a AVI, then do all your editing, and fixing up in VF as a first step. Then export as a AVI and finish up in a application like TMPGEnc that offers more control over bitrate and control of the rendering process.

I'm sure all the above sounds a little confusing and complicated if you haven't done it before and it is somewhat until you do it a few times, then the process goes smoothly.

Now if you want to go beyond the above "basic" improvements, you can preprocess using VirtualDub which includes more impressive filters like level adjustments (similar to Photoshop), unsharpen, and others.

Here's all the steps I go through to improve my collection of MPG files.

1. Open in VirtualDub, adjust levels, apply unsharpen and some tweaking. Render as uncompressed AVI.

2. Open the uncompressed AVI in Video Factory, do all editing, cross fades, transitions, overlays, add audio, tweak color balance, adjust brightness, contrast. render as AVI.

3. Open in TMPGEnc, select 2pass variable, tweak gamma, render as either Xvcd or SVCD.

A LOT of work and time. Usually worth the effort. Much depends on how good the original source file is. Remember: Garbage in, garbage out. LOL!