Prepping 17fps silent film footage for DVD?
 

I'm working on some Regular 8 and Super 8 (film) home movies for a family friend. She wants DVDs (possibly Blu-ray in future, since I scanned this film in HD, but just DVDs for now) to give out as Christmas gifts to family members.

The film footage was scanned uncompressed at 964p (native) and upconverted to 1080p AVIs for editing. (I still have the original capture files and also have the option of downconverting to 720p.) Silent Super 8 frame rate is 18fps and Regular 8 is 16fps; I had the AVI converter set to 17fps as a compromise but, again, I could reconvert from the original captures if advisable.

My question is what conversions would be recommended to get these videos in the best format for rendering to DVD? Now, VideoStudio can convert them after editing...I've done that with some personal home movies...but I wanted to see if I can improve quality by running the conversion on the clips prior to loading them for editing. (Original format, of course, is 4:3.)

You can't improve quality with NLE editors. What you can do is edit. That's why they're called "editors" -- basically cut/join, transition effects, rudimentary color. .

No one can advise processing or quality issues in detail without an unfiltered video sample.

NTSC required specs, DVD & BluRay:

NTSC DVD:
=============================
Video:
MPEG2, bitrate Up to 9.8 Mbit/s (9800 Kbit/s)
MPEG1, bitrate Up to 1.856 Mbit/s (1856 Kbit/s)
720 x 480, MPEG2 (Called Full-D1)
704 x 480, MPEG2
352 x 480, MPEG2 (Called Half-D1, same as the VCD Standard)
352 x 240, MPEG2
352 x 240 pixels MPEG1 (Same as the VCD Standard)
Frame rate: 480 pixel height, 29.97 fps, progressive or interlaced or telecined
Frame rate: 240 pixel height, 29.97 fps, progressive only
film speed with pulldown (telecine) for 29.97 fps supported only by MPEG2 video
Aspect Ratios: anamorphic 4:3 or 16:9 (16:9 supported only by 720x480)

Audio:
48000 Hz, 32 to 1536 Kbit/s
Up to 8 audio tracks containing Dolby Digital AC3, DTS, or PCM(uncompressed audio)

NTSC BluRay:
=============================
Bitrate: Max video bitrate = 40 Mbit/s
video codec: MPEG2, h.264/AVC, or VC1

1920×1080 29.97 fps interlaced or telecined (59.94 fields/second) (16:9 only)
1920×1080 24 or 23.976 frames/second progressive (16:9 only)
1440×1080 29.97 fps interlaced or telecined (59.94 fields/second) (16:9 only)
1440×1080 24 or 23.976 frames/second progressive (16:9 only)
1280×720 59.94, 24, or 23.976 frames/second progressive (16:9 only)
720×480, 29.97 fps interlaced or telecined (59.94 fields/second) (anamorphic 4:3 or 16:9)
16:9 supported only by 720x480

Audio:
Dolby Digital up to 5.1 channels (Max 640 Kbit/s)
Dolby Digital Plus up to 7.1 channels (Max 4.736Mbit/s)
Dolby Lossless up to 9 channels (Max 18.64Mbit/s)
DTS up to 5.1 channels (Max 1.524Mbit/s)
DTS HD up to 9 channels (Max 24.5Mbit/s)
Linear PCM up to 9 channels (Max 27.648Mbit/s)

Encoding Video for Blu-Ray using H264/AVC: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=154533