Not really but it depends on your encoder, source footage etc etc. Some encoders will give you footage that looks fine at 3-4 avg. others look terrible!

Encode and see for yourself. You can always do a 3-5 mins edit of sections of your footage and run it through your encoder, Compressor, QT, BitVice etc to see what works best for this job.

Jake

Thanks. I used the built in encoder in DVDSP for the project I mentioned. Should I be using Compressor? I've also seen remarks about BitVice. This is all pretty new to me :P

There might be several reasons that your (recordable)dvd's don't play not just the bitrate.

Keeping it down a bit will help as will using AC-3 audio instead of PCM. Use A.Pack for that, you get it with dvdsp.

I like BitVice over Compressor still as it has DVNC for noisy footage and Compressor is still allowing illegal spikes. It's getting better all the time though.

I import my files into dvdsp so can't comment on that part of the workflow. Even if I used QT I'd export then import them as mpeg-2. I like to see what I'm dealing with and it leaves one less thing to worry about a muxing stage.

Burn at 1x also.

Jake

Thanks for the advice!