I had a lot of trouble of getting my recording properly edited and burned to DVD (SD) without loosing image quality.
Camcorder: Panasonic HDC-SD909 (or similar HDC SD707, HS900, SD800,...)
Quality Setting: 1080p50 (1920x1080 50 fps progressive), Dolby Digital 5.1
Install ClipWrap to get a version of ffmpeg.
Install Perian 1.2.1 (NOT 1.2.2 or the audio is distorted)
Convert files to m4v using Alan Somers Automater Script Rewrap2M4V. This will change the container to m4v
Import the files into iMovie (after some research I could not find a way of organizing the files myselfs. You probably have to let iMovie manage them, but it creates nice folders that can be backup'd using rsync).
Create your movie!
Export using "Export using QuickTime" in HD (720p or similar) - if you use "Share with iDVD" the image quality sucks (is terrible).
Open iDVD
Goto preferences and select "Best performance" for encoding settings (Professional quality will compress more... wtf?)
Create a new project
Drag&Drop the previously exported movie into iDVD - behold even chapters are there!
Burn to DVD
Enjoy!
Things I looked into:
- Final Cut Pro - way to complicated for what I want to do with videos. iMovies just does it all without manual.
- Compressor - a lot more option for encoding, but I lost the chapters I created in iMovie.
- DVD Studio Pro - for my basic needs iDVD fits better because I'd like to have a nice standard theme AND that doesn't look as crappy as the once from Toast.
