Don't want to re-encode, will it hurt the quality?
 

I captured the clips with 720x352 with the 15000 bitrate..i dont want to encode them to 352x480 with a bitrate of 3600 because i have a lot of clips and each clip will take 40-60 min to encode and that will take forever, i just checked in workshop and i can bring 6 clips per dvd onto it and i'm ok with that...is it ok for me to do that, or will it hurt the quality of it?

720x352 is not a valid resolution, I hope you made a typo/mistake, and really meant to type 720x480. Yes?

15000kbps is not a valid DVD-Video bitrate, you must re-encode to a value below 9500kbps (maximum audio + video = 10080kbps or 9800kbps).

Quality will not be degraded if you encode with smart settings. This means using 2-pass VBR, and good bitrates.

Ulead DVD Workshop would have re-encoded your video, and you don't want an authoring program to ever encode your videos.

You're going to just have to sit and wait for it to encode "forever" on this one -- it's unavoidable.

Yes, I meant to say 720x480. Ok..I'll do the encoding then. I'll use the bitrates that you suggested before, 3600 avg, 5500 max and 1000 minimum with the 2 pass, top field first.
Was hoping I could avoid it because I have over 100 of these clips and having to encode each one will take awhile, but I guess it has to be done.
Thanks

Yeah, wish I had a shortcut for you, but it's just not to be.