Compressing 3hrs of footage

Here are my hardware specs:

Imac
OS X 10.6.8

3.6GHz i5
10gb ram

running CS 5

HD video shot on Canon 5d mkii and 60d
audio on zoom h4 (but only mp3 mode)


I had to shoot some random local council meeting for a client - something I'm not used to as it was 3+ hrs - and they need it exported to DVD or a file.

They don't mind SD so I figured it'd take less space to go SD (even though I shot SD)

I brought in all my clips and synced them with the audio track and then used Dynamic Link to send to Encore to make a first play DVD. It's taken almost 24hrs and it's not even half done!

I also tried compressing a clip (Vimeo SD settings) in Premiere and that was going to take over 350 hours!

The HD clips are dragged and dropped onto and SD timeline btw


Is there a better, more efficient way of going about this to get the client the final product?