Sorry
 

I accidently posted the above on the NLe thread vs the pc hardware one. Please Feel free to answer above ?? as well as below ??

My Panny GS-400 footage looks as good as a commericial DVD on a the 32" Sony upstais. However, on the 123" front projections system it looks washed out and not as sharp as a regular DVD movie.
I've also noticed that with Premiere Elements, the straight DVD (no image adjustment) looks inferior to the tape played in the camcorder hooked up to the firewire input of a component DVD recorder. It isn't as clean or sharp, and has less "punch." If I play extensively with every cut - sharpening, color correcting, brightness/contrast. etc. I can make it look closer to commerical DVD quality; However, with either Premier Elements or Pinnacle Studio 9.4, they freeze after 7-8 hours of rendering a 1 hr DVD.
I actually think the Pinn Studio 9 dvd encoder might be a tad better. Is the encoding quality of Premier Elements the same as the Full Adobe Premier, or Encore?

Is their much of a difference in output quality between Vegas+DVD, Adobe PPro/Encore, Pinnacle Liquid, Edius, or the Apple Final Cut Pro Suite? Which is Best?

I know, none are perfect, but before I fork out $$$, I'd like to figure this out. I think my 4yr old computer lacks the horsepower to demo any of the serious software above:(

I sure would appreciate anyones input on this:) Thank you for you, I assure you it is most appreciated.

Edius includes ProCoderExpress for encoding output. PCE is not as fully featured as ProCoder2 but it will give you several output options and excellent DVD quality. ProCoder enjoys a very good reputation.

Canopus is expected to release an add on product, called Speed Encoder, towards the end of the year in order to take advantage of the latest fast mobos. Initial reports are that this will offer big improvements in encoding tiimes.

Re your system compatibility, it may be wise also to check the relevant nle user forums to see if there are any issues with your new spec.