Rendered text looks low res

Question

I've read every post I could find about this and gleaned some insight, but still need a more definitive answer than I've come across. I created title cards using the 2D FCE program, as the boris Calligraphy program seemed too complcated for what I need to do and I'm running out of time.
Problem is, the text looks fine until I render it. Render User Settings are 100% for Frame Rate and Resolution. Filters, Frame blending and Motion Blur are all checkmarked. I've tried various combinations of those uncheckmarked. No improvement.
The fonts are Gill Sans plain 27 pt. and Geneva bold italic 24 pt., but it doesn't matter what the fonts are, or the point size, or whether it's the graphic bar I created from a rectangular shape... They all look degraded after render, like a low res approximation for playback. The type, however big or bold gets suddenly darker, and less cleanly defined and the graphic bar actually shortens slightly. Is that in fact what it is, just a low res way of playing back, so I shouldn't worry about how it looks here? However, a fairly knowledgable friend says the image shouldn't look degraded after render. Ultimately going to DVD. Please straighten me out here. Much thanks.

Answer 1

The material is being rendered into an interlaced
digital format for display on an interlaced analog
monitor. It's not intended for display on a computer
screen. The Canvas is for monitoring purposes only.
If you really want to see how it looks set the Canvas
to 100% view. That's the true interlaced image as it
will appear. Of course you can't see this properly on
a computer screen especially if the material has
motion or is animated.
Thanks, Tom, for the explanation and your patience. All is clear except that you suggest that if I really want to see what it looks like, to set the canvas to 100%... that that's the true interlaced image as it will appear. I must be misunderstanding, but when I set the view to 100%, I get an enlarged, TV Safe sort of view, but the resolution looks the same (de-interlaced) as always after the render. Basically what I'm asking is whether the eventual video will look like (with, of course, the normal degradation of NTSC) what I created on 2D text or graphics BEFORE I rendered it.
I tried to check it on a monitor, but when I plugged Video Out from my G4 to the monitor, I got a nice image of the FCE interface on TV, rather than a screenfilling view of the selected sequence. What am I doing wrong here?
Thank you again. I don't know how you put up with these kind of questions, but I deeply appreciate it. Restores my faith in mankind.
- Frazzled in SF