I read that the Canopus codec was the fastest for DV encoding, but I never encode to DV - all I do is cutting DV video and adding some few blends and titles. The rendering/encoding time is minimal compared to the time needed for direct stream copy, and that depends on the HD speed only. So, I never really cared about getting another codec than the MS (except the Panasonic, which is only a VFW-modification of the MS-DS codec).