I've been trying to tackle this for quite some time now and can't quite figure out the best route to get where I want to be.  I have a number of dvr-ms files on an HTPC that I would like to edit, then burn to dvd.  They are a combination of recordings in MCE2005 and Vista Home Premium.  The problem is that I'm getting poor video quality (mainly pixelation) on any type of conversion from dvr-ms. 

 I've used MCE Buddy to convert to MPEG-2 or h.264 (two pass/no resize), still less quality than original.  I've tried publishing them with Movie Maker-same thing.  File size is not an issue, plenty of storage space.  I'd prefer to use something I have (ie: iMovie, or Movie Maker), but am willing to purchase 3rd party software for Mac or PC if it will make a difference. I've also tried Roxio Creator 2009 without any luck either (output as both h.264 or mpg).  I also have a MacBook Pro and I'm comfortable using iMovie.

I continue to use the HTPC to record/view shows and the quality is excellent when just viewing recorded shows (and leaving the format alone).  What is the best way to keep the quality level as high as possible, edit a dvr-ms file, then burn it to a dvd?  And is quality level (which is set to "best" in Vista) affect by CPU speed?

 HTPC:  Athlon64 3000+, 2GB RAM, Asus 7600GT video card, Hauppauge WinTV-HVR 1600 tuner

I include these specs just in case they are relevant.  I've been doing all of my tests of various editing techniques on an i7-920 system with 6 GB DDR3 (Win 7 Home Premium).

 First, you really only should go DVR-MS to MPEG-2.  The video is already MPEG-2, you just want to pull it out of the DVR-MS wrapper.  I believe MCE Buddy would work, but my favorite is VideoReDo which will also help patch the video stream (which could be your problem).  When you have gone from DVR-MS to MPEG-2 you would just use a any DVD authoring program (eg. Roxio, Windows DVD Maker, Nero, etc, etc).

I believe there are also profiles in DVRMSToolbox that will allow you to extract the MPEG2 to a .mpg without tinkering with the quality.  A bit of a learning curve, but free and DTB is a great product for a variety of things once you learn it.

Lately I've been using VideoReDo Suite, but you can import dvr-ms files directly into Nerovision and author a DVD without transcoding as long as it's a conventional SD recording. If i'ts a HD recording, it will be transcoded down to 480i when Nerovision burns it.

John

Thank you!!  I'll give it a shot and see what happens