Please help! Having a nightmare with DVD S Pro!

I'm having the hardest time ever trying to build & format my dvd in DVD Studio Pro. I used compressor from FCP as a 90 minutes high quality mpeg -2 (6.2 mbps avg rate) with default settings and no filtering. The only thing I did was crop top and bottom, as the sequence content is letterboxed (720x480). The sequence is 89 minutes long.

Compressor delivers me a fine file that averages 6.145 mbps and the image looking good, except for the very 2 last sequences of about 2 minutes long! They have severe pixelation all over the place...

Now, as I tried to export from FCP only the last 5 minutes on a new sequence, it appears fine, but averaging only 5.5 mbps! The footage is perfectly fine, was shot 24pa with the pulldown removed ok! I don't know what is going on...

I tried to mix the 84 minutes of the first file with the 5 minutes of the new sequence, on DVD Studio Pro, but I keep getting an "INTERNAL MIXER ERROR". Is this because of the different bit rates? Anyway, the DVD content altogether ends up with only 4.4 gig...

Why am I getting only an average of 5.5 mbps when I try to compress those last 5 minutes, if the settings were the same 90 minutes high quality mpeg -2 (6.2 mbps avg rate) with default settings and no filtering??? There is no apparent problems with the footage and, when I click "analyze movie", it also appears as having the same settings as the rest of the footage.

Anyone out there to help? I have spent the past 2 weeks stuck with this problem, which is one of the final steps in the process of making my doc feature, which took me more than a year!

Use a different encoder. Sometimes I sound like a salesman for BitVice, but it is THE best encoder for SD (and I've worked with all of the $20-$40K encoders out there). It's only $300, runs on Mac and produces incredibly crisp pictures (even when you use their nose reducer). Only downside is that it's painfully slow. But it's very good and very cheap.

Max
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New York
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