[robains]

Eric,

There are MANY compression techniques for MPEG2 (DVD SD - standard definition) format. Don't know what software you are using to produce the files for DVD SD, but look around in that software to see if you have any quality setting options.

On my MacPro with FCS (Final Cut Studio) there is a dedicated application called "Compressor" who's soul task is to take .wmv, .mov, etc. and produce MPEG2 for DVD SD. Compressor has MANY MANY options for compression and quality and jobs can be batched and quality options saved.

MiniDV is a compressed format at the source -- meaning the video data is compressed and then written to tape (no option here) -- at about a max rate of 25MB/sec. This is pretty standard for consumer grade video recorders. So keeping this in mind, when you compress again to MPEG2 you are actually compressing twice. You also have to worry about your capture settings (i.e. field dominance - determine by your video camera, aspect ratio, etc.).

If you plan to burn a true Blu-Ray DVD, then that will be MPEG4 format and you will need software to do that as Sony will take a royalty fee for Blu-Ray format. Blu-Ray is the better format, but it's a less consumer friendly format for those that want to produce content on Blu-Ray. True HD cameras that do 1080 24p are usually in the $5,000+ range and use memory cards as no other medium (tape) has the 200MB/sec performance needed to capture uncompressed HD 1080 24p. Typical 16GB memory card will capture only 14-16 minutes of uncompressed 1080 24p video.

Anyway, I seem to have provided more info than you want/need -- PM me if you have specific questions on this.

2-Y, thanks for the offer, much appreciated, but most likely I'll have my buddy follow me with his truck -- worse case would be tow rope on back roads. I don't wanna do trailer if I can avoid it, but I might not be able to. Dropping car off 11am Sat.