Way OT: Video Compression Help

["Kevin Cheli-Colando" <kevin@minds-eye.org>]

I know this is far from the intended point of this list, but I also know
there are a lot of smart and multi-talented people here so I'm going to
go ahead and ask; does anyone know of a good resource to learn about
digital video compression issues?

I've been making digital videos to accompany some of my spacier music
and I've created about 80 minutes of video that I'm very happy with. 
Watching the individual files is great, they all look quite sharp and
snappy but when I try to create a DVD from the files, they are being
decimated by compression and reduced to an ugly collection of pixelated
junk (big square pixels too, not even small discreet squares).

Now I know that there is serious compression going on (I'm trying to
reduce about 17 gb to a single DVD of 4.7 gb) but I'm completely in the
dark about how to mitigate the compression so the video looks
acceptable.  Does anyone have any links or information they would be
willing to share with a very frustrated looper?

Many thanks in advance.

Kevin

-- 
Till now you seriously considered yourself to be the body and to have a
form. That is the primal ignorance which is the root cause of all trouble.

- Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950)

Sound and Vision:  http://www.minds-eye.org