Poor quality video when burning a DVD

Question

Hi All,
I have recently purchased & installed Premiere Elements 11 on my Windows 7 64bit Dell laptop. I found the tutorials very helpful and was able to successfully create my first project - importing a 46 minute AVCHD file4GB m2.ts shot on my Panasonic HC-V100 in Record Mode HG1920: 1920x1080 25f/s Audio 48kHz. When creating the project I selected: New Project>Change Settings>PAL>AVCHD>Full HD 1080i 25 andTicked ‘Force Selected Project Setting on this Project’ (I'm in the UK hence selecting PAL)
I added titles then created a menu and scenes using a still photo 2mb jpg 3456x2304 300dpi for the menu background. So far so good - really pleased with the results on screen. Next I selected Publish>Disc > selected AVCHD Add Name>Choose 1920x1080i>Burn to Folder. I then burned the BDMV Folder to DVD using the inbuilt DVD burner in my laptop.
This successfully produced a DVD with menus and titles which will play on my Blu-ray player. The quality of the video is excellent and I am delighted with the result however here is the first of the problems I'm hoping someone can help with: The background image on the menu is slightly blurred as are the menu/scene titles.
Next I wanted to produce a DVD for people who don't have a Blu-ray player & therefore need to play it on a normal DVD player. This is the second problem (and one I have seen mentioned elsewhere on the community). I published the project in a similar manner to the one above but with the following differences:
Burn to DVD Folder: Select 4.7>Type name>Browse to location. I now burn the VIDEO_TS folder to DVD, again using the the inbuilt DVD burner in my laptop however this time the result is very poor. The menu doesn't work and the quality of the video is unacceptable. Of course I understand that the result will be considerably lower quality than with the AVCHD version however this is not watchable.
(BTW, prior to purchasing Premiere Elements 11 I had been playing the video from my camera into a Sony RDR-HXD910 hard disc recorder then burning DVDs from that device using SP mode. This produced DVDs with perfectly acceptable quality so I must admit that I was hoping for similar results from Premiere Elements.)
I have read on the community that DVDStyler is a preferred method of burning DVDs however afer downloading it I failed to find a way of using it for simply burning my existing VIDEO_TS folder.
This is as far as I have got and now would really appreciate some help to point me in the right direction to be able to burn my project onto ordinary DVDs. I have tried to put as much information on the post as possible but I am new to video editing so have probably missed or not described something!
Thanks in advance
Simon

Answer 1

ATR,
Thank you for helping me out.
To answer your questions:
--Do you really need NTSC DVD-VIDEO standard 4:3 on DVD disc or is NTSC DVD-VIDEO widescreen 16:9 on DVD acceptable?
I was told that product specs require 4:3 aspect ratio for DVD.  (Unfortunately footage was all shot in 16:9 before I found out about the 4:3 finished requirement.)  I want to generate the highest IQ possible in this format.
--Is your 1920 x 1080p 30 or 25 or something else?
All video was shot at 1920 x 1080p 60fps.  AVCHD.
Video Source Properties as obtained from the Timeline:
Type: MPEG Movie
Image Size: 1920x1080
Frame Rate: 59.94
Source Audio Format: 48000Hz – compressed - Stero
Project Audio Format: 48000Hz – 32 bit floating point - Stereo
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.0
--What exactly is set as the Premiere Elements project preset for the project that has this 1920 x 1080p footage on its Timeline?
PROJECT SETTINGS
Editing Mode: AVCHD 1080p square pixel
Timebase: 59.94 fps
Frame Size: 1920x1080
Pixel Aspec Ratio: Square (1.0)
Fields: None (progressive scan)
Display Fomat: 60fps Drop-Frame Timecode
Title Safe Area: 20% horizontal, 20% vertical
Action Safe Area: 10% horizontal, 10% vertical
Audio Sample Rate: 48000Hz
Display Format: Audio Sample
--When the project preset was set, did you use NTSC or PAL section in the new project dialog?
I didn't make any choices.  I didn't use the new project dialog.  I imported media and started working.  When I saved, I made no choices.  Since I'm in the US and bought this from Amazon, I assumed it was NTSC, and that appears to be the case.
--Is your program version 12?
Yes.
Motivated by a different thread regarding titles and 4:3, I did create a test "movie" (not DVD) at 4:3 and all the titles fit within the image area.  (I even made a point of inserting a couple of titles that ran outside the "safe" area in the PRE Titler; these also all fit on the image although they came closer to the edge.  Not crowded, but perhaps not as aesthetically pleasing as those that were created within the limits.