I recently started encoding my miniDV tapes onto the computer and ive noticed that only sometimes do i get this static or lines on my movies... Ive noticed that when i encode with windows movie maker they are less extreme/non existant (but the file size is 100+ megs). Ive tried premier 6.5 which yields the worst results (the movie becomes wavy) no matter what codec, and pinnacle which sometimes has this distortion.

The raw capture is perfect.

Please note this distortion is during full screen viewing on divx player/twins video player and windows media player.

Dunno if this helps but im using divx pro 5.02 codec, xvid codec
all max res's single pass highest bitrate.

the computer is a p4 2.4b
with a maxtor 120 gig for movies
512 2700 DDR
8 gig for OS xp sp1
the camera is dcr trv25

people have suggested its my camera but ive encoded this movie perfectly but the size is huge so i kinda ruled that out.

any assistance would be helpful

Well.... I need to take a little breath after reading your post. You
are describing so very much codecs etc. that I'm a little at loss as
to what to suggest (for example, Premiere actually has almost
nothing to do with how your output looks!).

Lets try to break it down a little, shall we?

I'm not familiair with your camera. Is it a DV camera? If so, do
you transfer your footage through firewire into a DV AVI file?
If not, what do you use? I assume you are using full resolution
here (720x480 for NTSC and 720x576 for PAL).

If you play this footage with your Windows Media Player for
example, does it look okay? If so, good.

If you load your footage into Premiere you cannot judge the
quality in the window premiere uses to show it, because it is
a small and low-quality version of your clip.

Okay, now what kind of output formats have you created from
Premiere and in what resolutions/bitrates. I haven't looked much
at Divx encoding myself, so perhaps someone else will tune in
with their thoughts on that.

You say you find 100+ megs large. How long is your input movie?
If your movie is 90 minutes long 100 megs is small. If it is only
1 minute it is large.

My guess would be that what you are seeing is either stair-stepping
(this happens on tilted lines with sharp contrast) or interlacing
artificats (small time differences due to motion).

If you can post a picture of an example when it is worse we might
be able to better help you.

ill try to answer your questions in the order you asked them -=D

Yes my camera is a Dv camera and the movie is transfered to the computer thru firewire and full resolution.

Yes the footage looks merely OK thru windows media player.
The RAW capture looks perfect, once its encoded or compressed is where my problem is.

Im talking about the output of premier. Every movie ive outputted thru premier has a wavy distortion toward the beginning.
A file outputted thru Pinnacle does not have this distortion.
No matter what codec I use I try for the maximum amount of bitrate, quality, and such. The file size at that point doesnt matter. The goal is to capture DV that could be watched in a large window/ full screen without having to watch a bunch of pixelated garbage.

The RAW capture is 100+ megs for about 50 secs of DV (but it looks perfect)

im working on gettin a screen capture for you to show you what im talkin about...

BTW thank you for taking the time to help me with my problem!

Your welcome.... I'm suspecting you are using some incorrect
settings when outputting. Make sure you use the exact same
resolution & framerate to output as what your input signal is
(sometimes Premiere seems to wanna use something else for
unknown reasons).

If you can get a picture that would be a lot of help. Even more
great would be to get pictures before and after (same frame
number). Before is easy to get. Just load your footage in premiere,
drag it to the timeline go to the frame that you want to send
and then go in the File menu and select Export Timeline -> Frame.