I thought the colour looked better from DVD and there was no crop from the top and sides but slight artifacts. I will go with the DVD, thanks for your input
I forgot to mention but you probably guessed, those screenshots weren't from the source videos, they were from my encoded videos for iPod from each source. I want them to look good because they will be viewed on TV as well through a component cable and on other devices but need them to be iPod compatible so went with 1500 kbps, 640x480 anamorphic.