I'm using FCP. I used to export a Ref Movie out of the timeline, then brought it into DVDsp.
I wasn't happy with the results, getting depressed muddy images.

Getting better results bringing the Ref Movie into Compressor.
Compressor take about 20 to 30 hrs, depending on length of clip,
to make the m2v, or mv2, I forget it's name. Is this normal??
So much for a nice quick work flow. I have the usual MacPro, 8 core, 8gb of memory.

I'm eager to hear other people's workflow, or if you anyone knows a good thread. Thanks.

I use compressor and I am very happy with the results. Others are very happy with Bitvice, which is a fantastic product from Innobits.

20 - 30 hrs is a long time. Do you have Compressor's 'Frame Controls' tab active? If so, Resize filter set to Best will slow the encoding process as will Anti Alias & Details Levels.

I find that pretty much all of my encodes from HD edit to m2v with Frame Controls off but engaging a 2 pass VBR set to best at a moderate bit rate (remember the higher the bitrate does not necessarily mean an automatically better end result as the bitrate you choose is the average bit rate and with very little pixel change the bitrate can and does drop to less than 1!). I also set motion estimation to Best.

Experiment with different settings on a 30 second clip to see what works best for your project.

Hope this helps

Best wishes

Make sure you have set Compressor up to use all 8 cores by setting up Qmaster and selecting "Include unmanaged services" when you go to render.

Hi


Have a look at this...
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/hdv_to_prores_with_chapter_markers_stone.html

This may provide some answers. The time your mac is spending rendering points to you have some issues with your FCP settings and/or your selected output codec settings.

Recently I got good results with:

- export to ProRes 422, set size to 576x720 (9:16)
- import the movie to DVDSP

Those were without audio. Don´t know if you get ok audio this way. Otherwise transcode with Compressor with the "DVD best quality 90 min".