High rez DVD menus

[Final Design Studios]

I'm putting a DVD together and the clips for the menus keep looking pixellated.

They are rendered out at 720x480 but when played on a computer screen they tend to look pixellated especially when blown up to full screen (which is understandable)

But if I create a high def image instead (because its all rendered out of lightwave) will DVD architect be able to support it, or will it recompress it make it smaller?

 

[Norm Sanders]

I've messed with this before, and putting higher res. images into your menu will help it look sharper on your TV screen, but be careful about it being too sharp as I've noticed flicker before.

When I've put my clips out into MPEG2 for the menus, DVD Architect still insists on compressing them, and I'm not sure why. Also, check your bit rate settings when you prepare the project ... perhaps you're setting them below the default bit rate? To save room on your disk, you can control those pretty well, and throw them WAY down, but they'll look like crap. Also, don't put the bit rate too high, or some DVD players won't be able to play the DVD ... 6.0 - 8.0 is a guaranteed safe range & still pulls out good results.