Help: MiniDVvs. HDD?

[waynesportsphotos]

Purchased a Sony 60GB hard drive recorder. I love it - - it takes nice video and the clips are easy to retrieve, sort through, and view on TV with the recorder. However, when I burned DVDs, I wasn't too happy with the quality of the video when played back on a DVD player. I am not sure whether it has to do with the compression of the video during rendering, or due to the fact that the HDD records in MPEG2. It was especially bad when panning - - when I panned the camera, the video was extremely choppy and difficult to view. I am considering trading it in for the MiniDV version, but wanted to see if anyone has any insights first. Maybe I wasn't using the highest quality setting when rendering the DVD. Thanks.

[Barb O]

We have a different model of Sony hard drive camcorder. What I expereinced with Premiere Elements 3 is that I needed to Reverse field order on the clips/files from the Sony HDD when they are on the Premiere Elements timeline.

Yes the MPEG2 format is a factor here. The more motion, the more choppy it will be when you have not done the Reverse Field dominance. If your problem can be totally fixed by this simple command in Premiere Elements, I am not sure. The only way to know is trying it and burning another DVD.

I am not at the computer which has Premiere Elements in order to give you specific instructions. If you have the "Premiere Elements In a Snap" book, I think it will have instructions or look in the Premiere Elements Help.

If that does not work, there are other software programs that will convert your MPEG-2 to a DV-AVI file. You would find more info on that in the Premiere Elements forum at the Adobe site. But the purists will definitely tell you that you should use mini-DV (DV-AVI) with Premiere Elements.

[Carbone]

If you had not purchased the video camera already, I'd have suggested MiniDV too. It the best format for home video editing, for Mac and pc.

Ray