Even crazier is my top rate when iDVD is doing nothing, which, of course, does nothing but support the blog quote below:

PID COMMAND %CPU TIME #TH #PRTS #MREGS RPRVT RSHRD RSIZE VSIZE
543 EncoderSer 84.5% 0:38.70 7 122 237 21.1M 17.9M 36.9M 136M