Definately too hight of a bitrate! Stay around 5 or 6 Mbps with AC3 audio and you should be fine. Also there are some things that the MPEG-2 format doesn't do well, slow fades crossfades and transitions being one of them. Unless you have a really high end encoder card you will most likely see some artifacts during fades.

highest possible video settings

How high?

Transitions (fades and dissolves in particular) are a real problem for MPEG encoding. You see problems all the time when watching satellite TV. The worst of all is smoke. Guaranteed pixelization.

You best bet would be to take a few problem areas, and then encode at three different bitrates, burn to a DVD-RW, and play on your DVD player. I'd suggest the standard template (which is VBR 6 Mbs average, 8 Mbs max); then try constant bitrate at 6 Mbs. Finally, go ahead and crank it all the way up to 8 Mbs average, 9.8 Mbs max. This last setting is supposed to be within the DVD spec, but some report that players can't keep up. I believe that this apparent discrepancy is explained by the fact that read error rates on dye based media (the stuff you burn yourself) may be much higher on some DVD players than when those DVD players play commercial DVDs, many of which are encoded at pretty high bitrates.

Anyway, it is worth a try. Let us know what you find out.

I'm not actually sure what all you guys are talking about....the only settings I'm familiar with is when I go to render as ...and I set up the specifications for mpeg 2...the first window says "video quality" or something similar, and I use the drop down menu to select best...the the next window has a slider that I can slid up all the way to a nuber which says 31 (which is what the help file recomneds I use for dvd)....where is it that I should set the quality lower?
Also, I wasn't under the impresion (becuase I've tried) that I could burn to a dvd-rw and play in on my dvd player?

Sounds to me like your MPEG encoder isn't registered yet. Once you register it a lot more options will pop up!

I can't see DVD-RW's on my home player, either- just DVD-R's.

In additon to what's been said above you're making a assumption a lot make in that you think "best" means "better" as in better quality. It may, then again it may not. The difference between "good" and "best" deals with HOW Vegas deals with the video.

Good = bilinear interpolation
Best = bicubic interpolation

Without going it the details of the differences again (I have many times) understand that best will take much longer to render and only under partiicular situations result in a better result. For many projects the "good" choice is the best one to make. ;-)

Different DVD players play different formats - there is DVD +R , DVD -R, DVD +RW, DVD -RW. Some usnits play all, some others, some none. It is all rather confusing right now. (Oh - yeahm some burners brun all, some burn some, some burn one. Obbviously you have a burner -check the specs and see what formats it uses. Than check your DVD player and see what format it will play back - if any)

I'm wondering if I'm the only one having this problem...I still can't seem to solve it. It just doesn't make sense...sometimes the transition is perfect, sometimes it sucks...and it's footage of the same thing in the same film....I can't understand why sometimes it works and others it doesn't

>I'm wondering if I'm the only one having this problem...I still can't seem to solve it.

I think you are the only one with the problem. Last time you were asked to check the bitrates, yet you haven't reported anything back. Have you figured out what bitrate means in terms of the encoder? Its *not* the quality slidebar. Can you get a copy of bitrate viewer and look at the results? (Its at http://www.tecoltd.com/bitratev.htm. Get the free version.)

>It just doesn't make sense...sometimes the transition is perfect, sometimes it sucks...and it's footage of the same thing in the same film....I can't understand why sometimes it works and others it doesn't.

Neither can anyone else. And we have nothing to go on. You're an isolated case; no one else seems to ever have reported the same symptoms.

And its a moving target. Are you saying that you take the exact same avi file, the exact same settings in Vegas, render the exact same way, do it more than once, compare the results, and in some cases the transition is fine while in other cases the transition is pixelated? Please confirm if so, because its hard to believe (though stranger things have happened, e.g., one copy of the video could be on the inside of the DVD and the other copy is on the outside and your player/bitrate combination is borderline).

Can you take your DVD and play it on someone else's player and TV? Can you post an example of the problem on the internet so we can look at it? Can you try again, this time without any audio and see if it makes any difference?

All anyone can tell you right now is that transitions "max-out" the encoder and require a high bitrate. This means that your video is cruising along at a lower bitrate then the bitrate rises during the transition then settles down again. Some players have problems when the bitrate is high...like blockiness. But this is only one possibility; it could be many other things

Hmm . . .

I'm not having any trouble at all with these . . . no pixellation at all - even when showing on an LCD projector, 10 ft diagonal.

I'm using Vegas default MPEG2 settings.

Am I just lucky?

Cheers,

XOG

Download the MC demo encoder at;
http://www.mainconcept.com/downloads.shtml
Just use the default settings and check the results, if not perfect then its not the mpeg encoding.

"Are you saying that you take the exact same avi file, the exact same settings in Vegas, render the exact same way, do it more than once, compare the results, and in some cases the transition is fine while in other cases the transition is pixelated? "
No, what I'm saying is that within a file, one transition which contains the same sort of footage (eg and interview with someone standing still as opposed to one transition being an interview and the next being a football game) as another transition within the same file will look fine, and the next one will look pixalated.
I have a feeling it might be my player, becuase I can't see the pixalation when I view it on my monitor...so I'll try that tonight and I'll get back to you.
Thanks for your patience.

I just use the default settings when burning a DVD and haven't had any problems. See what format your burner records in and compare that with what your player will read. For example, if your burner is -R/RW, then your player needs to be able to read -R/RW media (it should tell you in your manual). I know a lot of people prefer the -R/-RW format, but I chose the +R/+RW format for my burner. I've burned both +R and +RW media and both play fine in my player, and my DVD player is an older model that in the manual says it will not play any format of writable media, but it does. I've had extremly good luck with the (+) format.