Blu-ray authoring options, Encore v. DVDit v. Movie Factory

[guartho]

Reading over my post I see I made it too verbose. Here are my two real questions:

Does Mpeg-2 (vs. h.264) give you reliable 1080p playback on a variety of Blu-ray players?

Approximately how much time can you fit on a single layer BD-R using Mpeg-2 at 1080p?

I'd also be interested in any unsolicited thoughts on Ulead's Movie Factory.

For more details on my situation, here's my original post

I've spent the morning searching this forum and haven't found the answer. If this has been spelled out before I apologize and request direction to the appropriate thread since I wasn't able to find it on my own.

I need to start authoring my videos, specifically HD wedding videos, on Blu-ray by the end of June. Right now it looks like my options are Encore as part of Premiere Pro for $750, DVDit Pro HD for $300, or Ulead Movie Factory Plus for $80.

I've read quite a bit about Encore and DVDit Pro. I just learned of Ulead Movie Factory in my searching of this forum today so I know the least about it.

Other than price, my concern is versatility. It seems that with DVDit Pro I can only author in Mpeg-2.

Encore supposedly can author Blu-ray discs using H.264 in addition to Mpeg-2.

Perhaps it's a non-issue on Blu-ray, but for HD-DVD I never could get Mpeg-2 HD discs to play properly. The H.264 encodes were almost bullet-proof. Is burning to BD-r as Mpeg-2 going to be good enough?

In addition to reliability, my other codec-concern is space. I'll be wanting to be able to fit a max of 2 hours of 1080p on SL 25 gB discs. Is that possible using Mpeg-2? Most of my wedding DVDs land under 90 minutes total, but the first one booked is a full-Mass Catholic wedding.

As I said, I don't know much about Ulead's Movie Factory Plus. I'm guessing that it's Mpeg-2 only as well. If I go with one of the cheaper two, I really would consider it a stop-gap measure until Apple updates DVD Studio Pro. If I can "get by" with Mpeg-2 until then, I wouldn't mind.

Well, there's a whole truck-load of information. Any thoughts?