VideoStudio :: X4 - How To Make DVD Videos Look Better On TV Screen

I am a new user of X4 and have used X2 for only about six months so some of my questions may seem lame, but here they are.

First, I upgraded to X4 to get rid of that annoying AVCHD blip problem (it worked). But, I have become increasingly frustrated that the quality of my DVDs are still fairly poor to my mind. I have been taking HD videos of my daughter playing soccer and the videos look good on my computer (in clip mode, anyway, as opposed to project mode, which probably takes more processing power than I have). However, they don't look that good to me when I watch DVDs I have created.

The camcorder is a Sony HDR – CX150 and its native MTS files are 1440x1080. After some reading, I discovered that standard DVD conversion plummets the resolution to 720x480, or 480p. So, perhaps that is part of the answer for why a standard DVD format of the soccer game doesn't look so nice on a 37" 720P or 1080i LCD Vizio TV? The 720x480 picture is being stretched to fit? OK, but why does motion look so bad? The image is decent when people are standing still, but I see a lot of blur and, sometimes, streaking when the camera pans or people start to run. What can I do about that?

I tried upping the bitrate for the DVD MPEG settings (from 6800 to 9800), but that did not work. I thought perhaps I could try making an AVCHD DVD using the 1920x1080 resolution and play it on my Blu-ray player (a Samsung BD-P1590) to see if that might look good. It didn't. In fact, it seemed to be the same or even slightly worse.

So, how do I get the good quality videos I am taking to translate to the TV screen? I have tried two different DVD players and TVs as well as my laptop.