loss of quality after adding transitions and effects

[Guest]

I am using a Sony Hard Disk Drive camcorder. After adding transitions,
effects and titles and burning a DVD with Movie Maker, the total size of the
DVD is 20% smaller than when I use Sony's Imagemixer software to burn a DVD
without editing. The loss of quality is very noticeable. I was of the
understanding that my camcorder stores the movie files already as MPEG-2
format, so why is the quality getting worse, and what can be done to retain
the original quality?

 

[Graham Hughes]

mpeg is a lossy format, so each time it is resaved it will be recompressed
and lose quality.
Some apps use smart rendering, so they only re-render parts which have
changed, this is the sort of app you need.
To do this project settings need to be identical to the video file settings.

 

[Guest]

Which program(s) do you recommend for me. I don't mind spending some money
for it if necessary.

Thank you kindly

 

[Graham Hughes]

Adobe premiere elements 3
Ulead Videostudio 11+
Pinnacle studio #?

Then there are quite a few more if you want to spend serious money