Yes, there is a moving horizontal bar under the Preview Window when you are making a movie to DVD.

I think it depends a lot on your computer, but I recently finished a movie, 1 hour long with lots of titles, transitions, pictures etc and it took just over 3 hours to render and burn to DVD. The rendering part is the longest bit - the burn part didn't take too long on my computer.

As it renders, you should also see it moving along in the video tracks at the bottom half of the screen, so you can see where it's up to. Bear in mind though that it goes through a few times, must be rendering different parts. But the blue stripey bar under the Preview window will give you an indication of how much has been done.

I'm surprised you were told it may take 20 hours. I have never heard of them taking that long.

Sarah