I had a major problem. I had recorded some footage with a HD Camera at 1080i. I then played the recorded footage straight to DVD, via my standalone DVD recorder. The Vob files were moves to my computer, converted to avi with Super, edited in Movie Maker and exported as a wmv file. So they went on quite a journey.

I wanted to burn the file to DVD as well as put onto youtube, but there was a serious quality loss at some point and I couldn’t figure out why. I had changed the encoding settings to mov, avi, xvid etc. At some stages the picture went very pixelated.
Other times the audio went out of sync, and again I changed the settings to mp3, wav, etc.
I never had this problem before, when I used old camera.

Then, after reading your well evidenced article,. I checked the bitrate and saw that it as still encoded at 1080!!! I was shocked that even through all the devices and conversion software the footage went through at the start, it had somehow maintained the bit rate.
I can change it with ‘Super’, which will hopefully solve my problem.

Thank you for your excellent article.

Steve