I also read this entire thread (and many, many others) in an attempt to get the best SD DVD results from my Canon HV20 HDV camcorder.
I have Adobe PP3 (3.2.0 on Windows XP) and have tried multiple workflows, and have spent many, many hours (even on a Quad core PC) creating different samples with widely different resulting DVDs.
Some results to share:
First, I found that the best Adobe-only PP3/AME workflow (as has been discussed on this thread) is to capture your HDV footage in an HDV 1080i project and save the clips; create a new SD 16:9 project; import the HDV clips into the SD workflow; motion scale 45%; do your edits in the SD workflow; encode with AME MPEG2 2pass-VBR, Quality=5, min/avg/max bitrates set at 6/7/8. This results in a DVD that looks good for your average home movies taken with an HDV camcorder and played back on a regular NTSC 4:3 television.
HOWEVER, the above Adobe workflow does NOT result in a DVD that looks too good when played back on my 1080p 50" HDTV... This was what got me searching for something better!!
I read the instructions presented by Dan Isaacs in this thread and installed AviSynth 2.5.7, DebugMode Frameserver, VirtualDub 1.7.8, and I purchased the CCE Basic MPEG encoder ($58 online).
After getting the sample script working that Dan provided, I then got his advanced script working (simply more options) as well. The results from this encoding workflow really blew me away when played back from a regular DVD player (without upscaling) on my 50" 1080p HDTV - WOW!!
The DVD output from Dan's AviSynth workflow wasn't too much different when shown on my regular "tube" 4:3 TV - it was the HDTV that really showcased what this workflow does for you. I wish I had an upscaling DVD player - I expect the results to be stunning when I get one!
Some comments:
1. one good thing about the Adobe PP3/AME workflow is that it fully exploits my Quad core PC, which saves a huge amount of encoding time - it will drive all 4 CPUs for hours at 100% each. This approach is great for encoding movies that you need to get out on DVD fast (relatively speaking). On my system, I calculate that the Adobe-only workflow needs about 12-15 mins to process each minute of video footage (e.g. a 40 min video can take 10 hours to process using 2p-VBR) with PP3/AME. The same footage takes about 30-40 mins per minute of video footage using the AviSynth/CCE workflow (e.g. a 40 min video will take about 20 hours to process, but only uses 30% of my Quad core CPUs).
2. for the AviSynth/CCE workflow, you can test out the workflow using VirtualDub to preview the AviSynth (.avs) file and test out the various parameters. Bottom line - if you can't see the video in VirtualDub, it isn't going to work in the CCE Basic encoder.
3. I found that installing AviSynth, DebugMode FrameServer, VirtualDub, and CCE Basic ($58) was much easier and more straightforward than I thought it would be. AviSynth uses several plugins for processing the video - these take a bit more care to make sure you have the right versions and they are in the right places (paths). There are many good examples of what parameters to use, so just experiment to see what works best for you. With VirtualDub, you can experiment - it encodes 1 frame for you to preview, which makes it fast to see the results!
4. A side benefit of having DebugMode Frameserver installed is that you can frameserve directly from Adobe PP3 to other encoders without creating an intermediate file. I frameserve directly to Sorenson Squeeze 5.0 for compressing high quality web videos from HDV, and I save 2-3 hours by frameserving instead of creating a huge intermediate file.
5. Playing around with a couple of the settings is required (both in PP3 and in the .avs scripts - I have a Canon HV20 and have found that you want to frameserve from the HDV project with "Upper Field First" set in the Export dialog in PP3, and use the OutputBFF as a parameter in the AviSynth parameters file for Dan's advanced script. Don't oversharpen to much. This will vary by camera, etc - I tried different combinations to get the best result for a DVD playing on my HDTV.
6. With the AviSynth/CCE approach you can frameserve directly from the PP3 HDV workflow - you don't need 2 projects as you would with the Adobe-only workflow (which requires one project for HDV capture; one for SD 16:9 output to the frameserver).
7. to answer an above post - the AviSynth/CCE workflow is best for creating the MPV (MPEG) files. I just Export Video (no audio) to DebugMode Frameserver to get the MPV file from CCE Basic. Then I Export the Audio only from Adobe PP3 (directly out) to get a Wave file (this is quick). Load the .MVP and .WAV files into Adobe Encore to author the DVD - no further compression or encoding will take place, so it just writes the files (plus your menu, etc) to the DVD.
My point is - both of these workflows have their place (speed with passable quality versus high quality), but if you want high quality SD video from your HDV camcorder, take the time to learn AviSynth, etc. - the results are worth the effort by far, and you get the side benefit of learning more tricks (like frameserving).
A big huge thanks to Dan for his contributions to this forum, and to my education!!
Kevin