I also have moved from Premiere to LE since version 5. I have really been impressed with the software and it's capabilities. The mpeg encoding is very good. I did a test between LE, Cinema Craft Basic and the encoder that came bundled with Premiere 6.5, I can't remember the name. I found little to no difference between the two with the same video and similiar settings. I had heard really good things about Cinema Craft, but I was happy with the results compared to something I already owned. Again, just an opinion. It also looks pretty good on the LE front, since Avid has said that they will continue developemnt. Again, saying and doing are two different things.
As for Premiere Pro, I have it on 5 workstations at work, and it is a good program. I like LE better, but have no problem using the PPro.

so you limited both the cinemacraft encoder and the mainconcept encoder(premiere 6.5) to single-pass encoding? that would not have been a fair test, because it really cripples the output quality of the encoder.

pinnacle could have licensed the full-on mainconcept encoder just like everyone else does, but i suspect that it was cheaper to give le a single-pass encoder instead.

one of the other things that i found infuriating about le is that it would not frame-serve to procoder... a guy named satish wrote the frame-server software for vegas to output to procoder for free, but pinnacle would not give him access to the minor program data that he needed to write a frame-serve program for le.

So true Dan, no 2 Pass VBR (in Avid XpressPro either as I understand it). This can create a problem for 1 1/2 to 2 hour DVD's. I never liked the statistical VBR routine they opted for (6 Mb). The encoder was a real beef of mine back @ v 5.01 of Liquid Edition.

The CBR routine in Liquid Edition 6.1 is excellent quality (8Mb). This routine will produce an 80 minute DVD or almost double that for dual layer. As always you can easily export elementary streams and use them in any encoder/DVD author you wish.

With the release of Liquid Edition 6.1 Pinnacle made signifivant improvements in the DVD encoding. I feel it is one of the best in the industry. Not just for image quality but also speed and reliability. By reliability I mean creating disks that are burned properly and playback in the widest array of players.

I've been having some great conversations with product folk at Avid & Pinnacle. Liquid Edition is alive and well and moving forward!!!

Gary