Video bitrate - impact of a 'blue' setting

[pglock]

I'm encoding some home movies from DV to cut onto a DVD. Most of the movies are between 70 and 80 minutes long. I started by using the tried and trusted iMovie -> iDVD route but, as the DVDs are bigger than 60 mins, this only allows me to use the 'Highest Quality' encoding setting which results in aggresively compressed files of around 2.5 GB.

My perception is that the highest quality possible would result in a file size of 4GB. Is there any advantage in encoding the .mov from iMovie (in dv format) using ffmpegx with a bitrate that is calculated to 4GB even though it shows up as 'blue' in the rate calculator window.

Supplementary question - which mpeg2 encoder gives highest quality, and on what settings?

[major]

In variable bitrate mpeg-2 encodings, the bitrate will vary by itself depending on the movie complexity, so using "blue" bitrates should not improve quality.

The highest visual quality is achieved with ffmpeg, though mpeg2enc has a better ratecontrol and is more compliant to DVD standards. So there is no absolute winner.

About settings, "quick preset" settings should be used.

[pglock]

Thanks for the advice. I'll start the encoding tonight!