DVD look terrible

I'm currently working in a 1920x1080 HDTV1080i (16:9) sequence. My other settings are as follows:
Pixel Aspect Ratio: Square
Field Dominance: None
Editing timebase 29.97
Compressor: Apple ProRes 422
My footage was shot on XDcam frame size 1920x1080, 1080p30, 29.97 and then transcoded to ProRes422.
When I render out a reference video (with "same as"unchecked) for use in DVD Studio Pro, and then go to compressor to create a M2v, (90 min, best quality), the m2v looks horrific? Is that just the nature of the beast when down converting or is there some other workflow I should try to get the best results possible?
The DVD has some terrible stair stepping. Viewed both on a computer monitor, then a flat screen TV.
Any help is greatly appreciated.

i think i can help you. i guess your project is supposed to be downscaled to SD ntsc format?
with these settings?
if thats right. i can give you the lowdown in the next reply.

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QT format doesn't work, only dvstream. Resulting DVDs look terrible. Help!

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DVD looks terrible on Mac/Windows and great on TV

Hi
My iDVD project looks sharp when played through a domestic player with a TV, but awful on the computer (Windows and Mac).
It looks soft and mushy.
Any ideas? It is going to be played back mostly on computers.
Thanks

Leanda,
Today's DVD are low resolution devices compared to our computer monitors because they were designed to be viewed on the 'old fashioned' CRT TV sets. An NTSC TV set has less than 640x480 pixels - when you 'blow up' such an image to fill a large computer monitor, the image WILL be 'soft and mushy'.
If you intend to view a movie just on computers and will keep it on a hard drive, you can maintain quality because hard drives can give the highest playback bit-rates. However, if you want to put the movie on a CD or DVD, the playback bit-rate of disc players won't let you maintain the highest quality without skipping. Neither of these options will give you the menu structure of iDVD.
You need to decide what it is that you want.
F Shippey

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When I preview the movie before burning it everything looks fine. After I burn the DVD and view it, all quick movements look terrible... horizontal lines and tracers. Please help!
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Do you have any other suggestions or advice pertaining to my situation?
Two:
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2.) Use a program like one from Moyea, or FLV to AVI. The conversion from FLV to another highly compressed CODEC like you probably used for the WMV will destroy any quality that you might have had.
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Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro1,1
Processor Name: Dual-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
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Total Number Of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per processor): 4 MB
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DVD look terrible

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