It's always best to render as image sequences. whether you use .png (or in my case I use .tif) files.  If your computer or DS crashes, you can always pick up where you left off, with a video format, you loose the whole thing.  Composite them later in the video format you need. (I use Afer Effects to composite them in layers, so I can render foreground and background images separately), but you can use whatever video editor you like to do this.

Lighting will affect the render quality.  Experiment with lighting. Stay away from some of the presets that look great, but take forever to render, instead look for ways to light your scene with lighting set ups that won't slow you down.

I use DS all the time for animation (and Poser before that) and find DS much better for my purposes.

Good luck!

-AniMajik
 

---

FatCatAlley.net | Now Playing "SpaceCat 5" Parts 1 and 2