I hate studio pro!
 

I had to make a last minute demo reel, I was very happy with the final edit. I put it into studio pro with the settings maxed, it gets to 90% and there is an error: bit rate too high. I'm used to this so I turned it down slightly, still on 2 pass. The video is burned, I'm running out of the office and I try a quick test: worst encode I have ever seen. At one point where there is a very long fade from a moving image to a still image, every second the image turns to complete pixelated mush.
Also the reason I don't encode w/ compressor is because the second I open it it unexpectedly quits. Ever since the day I bought it 2 years ago. I'm avoiding this whole package like the plague from now on.

dvd tudio pro? Is your project just a video...or other stuff as well?

For DVD output, use compression markers in FCP around your transitions which will force the encoder to insert a series of full I frames in those areas.

If Compressor quits, the usual fix for Mac applications is to go into the library/preferences folder and drag the corresponding .PLIST file to the Trash. Upon start up, the application will create a new one. The second thing to do is repair disk permissions. Sometimes when a software package installs, it can inadvertently leave the 'execute' permission bit toggled the wrong way or a disc error can cause it to happen. Either way, trashing prefs and repairing permissions works about 90 percent of the time. Failing that, there is software out there that will let you re-install just the portion of FCP that you want without going through the whole set of discs.

Maybe you've done all of this, I don't know. I will say that there are others who feel that the MPEG2 encoder supplied with DVDSP isn't the best.

-gb-

Wow, I didn't know any of that.
I do know what I did wrong. Speed adjustments in After Effects and then again in FCP. I guess it was strobing like crazy. FCP and Studio pro have their limitations.