Computer XGA Demos on DVD

[Frank Pitt]

Does anyone have any good tips for creating Microsoft Windows-based computer software demos to be delivered on DVD (NTSC or NTSC WS)?

I have tried a number of Screencam to AVI programs (@ XGA Resolution) but even on a very fast machine (P4 3.2 HT, 800FSB, 2 GB 800MHZ DDR RAM, ASUS 9800 XT, 10K RPM Serial ATA Drives) still suffer a great deal from dropped frames. Also, when the AVIs are encoded to MPEG2 the text is very garbled and the horizontal lines suffer from a great deal of interlace flicker.

Another thing I tried is outputting the demo via the svideo port on my notebook computer to the Canopus DV (svideo in) capture card. The interlace flicker and dropped frames are eliminated but the text resolution is even worse.

I also don't know what kind of TV & video cables will be used to view it (widescreen, 4/3, composite, svideo, component) so I need to create something that looks reasonable at the lowest common denominator (composite, 4/3).

Has anyone done this to any degree of success? Are there any tips to work around the resolution limitations of NTSC?

Thanks in advance.

Frank.

[Rob Lohman]

The only way around the NTSC resolution is to not use it. Or in
other words. Create a CD or DVD with movies on it at higher
resolution that can be played on a PC or Mac. Ofcourse this isn't
playable on a TV then, which is probably an issue for you.

At what resolution are you running windows when recording
these movies? You will need to be running at a maximum
resolution of 800x600.