Most people are finding that down the down conversion before the m2v encoding is the way to go. I have gotten good results both ways.
But for ME CBR is the way to go, I have never seen a VBR match the quality of a high bitrate CBR. So you get 3 benefits, quality, speed and better compatibility of playback.
For DVD-R 7.5 is the max bitrate you want to use (and you need to be using ac3 for the audio)
I have an 8-Core 1st gen and I have never gotten encode times even close to that long, I would say 5-6x realtime is the most.
[kyler boudreau] “And i’m just going to pump all of the frame controls to best assuming Compressor will handle things correctly.”
Never assume.