I've known about this for a while, but didn't try it until yesterday.
I have lots of clips that look great on my computer up to 720 x 480 format. I have a good graphics card, but the results are not stellar when I view them full-screen.
So I decided to convert some of them to dvd format, and burned them to DVD-R. I must say, the quality of some of them was OK, while others were excellent. The results depend on how much the original clip was dumbed down (reduced quality for smaller file size). The best results come from clips that are in mpeg format rather than wmv format.
There are various freeware programs you can use to convert your clips. Some programs won't interfere with the result of the clips. Others will post proprietary information on each clip unless you buy the full version.
I used the free version of Convertmovie 3.0. Another I know of is Windows Media Encoder 8 or 9. So if you want to be able to watch your clips on your television, consider converting them.