One thing to be aware of is that the aspect ratio is ever so slightly different between sd and hd. If you start with the widescreen DVD Architect template and change the horizontal number from 720 to 704, the aspect. ratios are exactly the same and the resizing math is simpler. At 720 you have to choose between skinny pillarbox lines on the sides of the frame or a slight streching of the image which I hate to do,especially with interlaced footage. I always feel like a width of 704 pixels gives you a better looking downrez although the difference is quite subtle. I always render directly to mpeg2 because a dv codec render will reduce the colorspace resolution and dull your color. If you have to render to sd avi, use the Cineform codec instead of the dv codec because that will preserve your colorspace and avoid dulling your color.

Workflow for good HDV to SD - DVD, use it all the time, no problems...

Make sure project is set to match the media you're using ( use the match media settings box ).
-if you change this after you've started the proejct, you're going to want to change any text media to be the same as your new project settings as well.
Render using *BEST* (not good, because best has better scaling algorithms applied).
Stretch to fill
watch and enjoy.

Dave

Make sure your deinterlace method is set to "Interpolate" for fast motion.

Could it be the fields are getting swapped, which would be more obvious with fast motion.

Nope, it isn't a field swapping issue. I am getting terrible encodes for both interlaced and progressive output for DVD. Thanks for the suggestions but I think maybe I'll try another workstation. Mine seems a little quirky lately and I wonder if it is effecting the rendering as well.

" I've done all the usual things: Best render, select deinterlace method, select alternate scan pattern, This may be more of a question than an answer, but I've always used the Mainconcept DVDA NTSC template for rendering from 1080i (in my case AVCHD) to 480i, which is "lower field first" - even though the source AVCHD file and project properties are "upper field first" - is this correct?

...Jerry

Do a search on this forum as well as others. This problem, (not specific to Vegas), has been thoroughly hashed over and there is no really good answer. I have found that frameserving to VirtualDub and using deinterlacing, resize (lanczos), and sharpen filters gives a significantly cleaner output... but this is a time consuming process. This problem only manifests itself with many/rapid moving objects.

Some have found that nesting your HDV veg into a SD project and rendering helps.

I did a hardware encode to disc using a Pioneer LX-1 standalone machine and low and behold the same artifacts and nastiness were present. I guess the content is just too much for 8Mbps MPEG-2 video. I'm a little shocked as I spend most of my time at work as an encodist and I haven't seen too much I can't eek a decent picture from at 8Mbps.

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone.