99% of what I shoot is weddings and I am having a heck of a time getting the DVDs to look good on my 26" flat panel LCD.
I am using Premiere 1.5, I have been rendering to MPEG2 using the Mainconcept encoder, I have tried darn near every setting. Everything looks really blocky and no where near as clean as a CRT.
I bought an upscaling DVD player connected by HDMI hoping it would help.
Now heres why I am baffled, I have a friend that also shoots video. He edits, renders, and burns in Pinnacle Studio and his DVDs look beautiful on the LCD TV. Mine look nowhere near the quality of his.

Any thoughts? What settings should I use to get the best quality picture on a LCD TV?

Thanks.
Adam

What are your render settings? What is the frame size?

Also, you said the LCD is nowhere near as clean as the CRT. Does the CRT look good but the LCD doesn't? Is that what you mean?

CRTs are more forgiving than LCDs, but your footage shouldn't look horrible on LCDs.

...CRTs are more forgiving than LCDs, but your footage shouldn't look horrible on LCDs.

I agree and had a similar experience with an edit I tested on my stepdad's 21" LCD. i freaked out and assumed it was my disc but found out later his monitor was miscalibrated. The next time i came by with a color bar and ramp chart on DVD and tested his settings before playing my disc. FWIW, this may not help your situation but it might be a good place to start if you haven't checked it already. Good luck!

What are your render settings? What is the frame size?

Also, you said the LCD is nowhere near as clean as the CRT. Does the CRT look good but the LCD doesn't? Is that what you mean?

CRTs are more forgiving than LCDs, but your footage shouldn't look horrible on LCDs.

CRT looks fine but the LCD looks a little grainy and the picture has kind of a pixelation to it.

1. What camera do you and your friend shoot with?

2. What are your encoder settings?

1. What camera do you and your friend shoot with?

2. What are your encoder settings?

I am using a DVC7 and an HD1, my friend has a XH-A1 and a GL1. I know his cameras are miles ahead of mine on quality but heres the kicker, I have taken footage from him to edit and when I give it back to him it still looks nowhere near the quality if he had done it all in Pinnacle.

I usually export out of Premiere at 8mbps CBR

Adam,

If you have the time, download the trail version of tmpeg at TMPGEnc.NET (http://www.tmpgenc.net/en/download.html)
and encode your video to see how it looks. I also use the premiere encoder and by all accounts its not the best. I have gotten "good" results with it at the same settings you used but with the motion slider to maximum. However, tmpeg to my eyes has the edge over it.

Adam,

If you have the time, download the trail version of tmpeg at TMPGEnc.NET (http://www.tmpgenc.net/en/download.html)
and encode your video to see how it looks. I also use the premiere encoder and by all accounts its not the best. I have gotten "good" results with it at the same settings you used but with the motion slider to maximum. However, tmpeg to my eyes has the edge over it.

Thanks Mark. I had read that on this site and downloaded the 2.5 trial. I exported a project from Premiere to AVI but TMPG wouldn't open it, all it opened was the audio. Do you have to export it a special way?

I actually took a disc I encoded and burned over to a buddies and watched it on his 52" LCD played through a ps3 and it looked nice. Apparently the ps3 does a good job of upscaling. I might have to invest in one of those to show demos.

But what happens on a clients dvd/tv or dvd/lcd, when they get your production home, how does it look?

But what happens on a clients dvd/tv or dvd/lcd, when they get your production home, how does it look?

Thats definitely a concern thats why I want to get it to look as good as I can.
I've gotten them to look pretty good by tweaking my settings turns out I wasn't at 8mbps I was only at 6. Still haven't got TMPGEnc to work, it doesn't want to open the video portion of the avi files. Might try reinstalling it.

I shoot with XHA1's and the DVD quality on a 32" LCD looks great, comparable to the same footage displayed in HD. I have found that processing my footage with Magic Bullet Looks definitely helps aswell as keeping the total run-time of the DVD at 1 hour 30 minutes anything over and compression becomes very noticeable.

Regarding TMPGEnc, I tried out frameserving from Premiere to TMPGEnc as well, and at first all I got was audio, with black video. I found in the TMPGEnc forums a couple of posts that talk about going into one of the options, and changing the priority of your plugins. That worked for me.

EDIT: Here is a link to a post that helped me. I've seen other posts that recommend different priority settings.
http://www.videohelp.com/forum/archive/tmpgenc-black-video-audio-okay-t65491.html