Video distortion on Menu

Hey all,
Thanks in advance for any help. My main issue is this- I compress all my video down using Compressor. Then I build my project in DVDSP3, link everything together, etc, etc with everything looking fine. My problem occurs when I create a chapter index, and when the video plays in each of the smaller "chapter buttons". The video is very pixelated and poor quality. It almost seems like it's degrading my video, however it's still using the original first few seconds of my already compressed video as my "thumbnail" video for each chapter. Does anyone have a suggestion as to how I could fix this? Is it something I'm stuck with, or am I just creating the chapter index wrong by dragging and dropping my track onto the button, then selecting Set Asset & Create Chapter Index? Agian, thanks for any help.

-Chad-

The issue is that you are using MPEG2 footage inside a menu which will itself get encoded to MPEG2 as the disc is built. This means that your footage will get encoded twice... which you don't want, really.

Seocndly, using the MPEG in a vastly scaled down version for the thumbnails is not going to be good either. For best results use .mov assets for the thumbnails.

Thanks. I'll try using the .mov file for each Thumbnail.

Thanks again
-Chad-

I always build my menues in FCP and Export > QT Movie.

I always let DSP3 do my encoding.

If I have several menues all with the same audio, I Export > QT Movie video only for each menu, then I export the audio clip. If it is a looping sound, I export the shortest amount of the loop (or loops).

In DSP I Add menu... then I drop the .mov file for that menu into that menu... then I check the length of the menu with the full length of the .mov file for the menu... then I add the audio clip in as many multiple times as necessary to add up to the length of the video.

This way, DSP does not waste tons of filespace encoding the same piece of audio over and over again.

I have found, that if the sum of the lengths of the audio clips exceeds the length of the video for the menu, DSP jumps to the next event based on the video length anyway, so not a problem to be sloppy.

Also, I try to make my .mov files for menues be 40-60 seconds in length, even if I have to repeat (in FCP) the motion loop.

Remember, when the viewer plays the DVD, when the menu loops again to the starting point, there is that few second gap where the buttons don't work... so I make my menues be around a minute long, to give the viewer a better experience.