Self contained or reference movies

hi there guys
wondering if someone with more knowledge on this subject can help.
im producing 500 copies of a film i did of a band in final cut pro studio which is being exported to idvd. ive made up a cool menu with chapter markers and bonus features and all seems to work ok, apart from tonight...!
i had my film stall half way through and started to get worried! im basically making all these copies through my new macbook pro and my intel mac and was wondering if anyone knows what is the best means of putting your film to idvd for final presentation?
i have to admit ive always used reference files to final cut as opposed to the main self-contained file and its served me well in the past but was hoping to hear other views. i didnt think there was any difference in the final outcome to be honest.
i realise it may just be a duff DVD but thought i would check from folk who know better.
thanks very much
matty

Ditto to the excellent advice already posted above.
the idvd project i did is in best performance but i want to change it to best quality for burning - i take it you can do this at any time by changing the project prefs??
If i'm not mistaken, the iDVD project will have to re encode if you opt to switch between these compression modes which is time consuming.
If I were doing this I'd take Fred's advice and out source the burning. If it were under 50 copies I'd use at least 2 burners from a disc image and lower the burn speed to 2x in Toast / Apple's Disc Utilities.

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