Render HD to MPEG2

[Sherman]

Looking some advice on best settings when rendering 720p-30 footage to MPEG-2 for DVD5.
Pretty good with render settings to Mpg4 for internet, Vimeo etcbut not so much w/MPEG-2.
Client will be viewing this project first from DVD on LCD projector tomorrow.
How do I make it look the best it can?

Thanks,

Dan

 

[aituv]

Render As, select "DVD Architect NTSC video stream"
Click the "Custom" button and then the "Video" tab.
VBR is the default for this template so, if you're going to use it, I'd change the "Minimum" setting from 192,000 (IMO, that's far too low) to 2,000,000.
Save this as a preset by going to the bar at the top of this tab and (my suggestion) add the word "mod" to the end of the Template line.
This way, it shows up as a render option and all you have to do is select it instead of going through these extra steps.
As I said, VBR is the default but I generally prefer to use CBR.
Click the CBR button and make sure it's set to 8,000,000.
Save this as a preset by adding (again, my suggestion) "8MB CBR" to the template line and saving it.
If your final video is no longer than 70 min., an 8MB CBR setting will work.
If it's longer than this, you'll need to use a Bitrate Calculator to determine proper settings.

All the above is for MPEG-2 only.
You'll need to render an AC-3 file for the audio as well. Just render using the ac3 preset, after this you can go ahead and author using DVD architect.