Black Levels Boosted Upon DVD Burn

I realize this topic has been covered and have read the many threads on this and on other forums. I have used the FCP forum in the past and thank anyone who has ever helped, well, anyone with a question. The link to purchase a Proc Amp is wonderfully informative and does nothing to remedy the problem or answer the question (for under $700).
Is the workaround (yes, yet another workaround to add to the incredible list of hoop jumping - try using Soundtack Pro to alter audio clips not captured in stereo!) really to figure out a final "DVD export" setting that compensates for the black level increase? That's what I've gathered after a couple days of casual research and all today really trying to tackle the problem. Sorry, just a little frustrated.
If anyone was patient enough to read this all the way through and has a better idea than dropping the video level before exporting to Compressor/Quicktime please let me know.
Also, why is the problem not nearly as noticable in my three year old version of iDVD?
G4 Dual 1.25, 2GB RAM   Mac OS X (10.3.9)   FCP5.03 DVDSP4.03

When you say "black levels boosted," do you mean you have too much black or not enough black? In other words, is your complaint that things are too dark, or that blacks are no longer "true" black?
From your text, it sounds like you're complaining that your footage is too dark.
Most complaints, however, are that compared to DV footage, the MPEG2 results are washed out. This is because they're comparing footage that has no "setup" (i.e. playing video directly out of the DV camera) with footage that has "setup" (i.e. playing video from a DVD player, which defaults to black equalling 7.5 IRE rather than 0 IRE). This is why you've seen the "proc amp" recommendation elsewhere.
Can you describe your workflow in detail? It sounds like you're probably using DV footage--is that true? Are you exporting out of FCP into Compressor directly? Exporting a reference movie first? Exporting a movie and then encoding from QuickTime? Other?

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