Meaning of XSVCD

[monteie]

A friend of mine told me that XSVCD was a variable bit rate SVCD. The way he explained it was when there was a need the bitrate would jump up to the specified max and decend as well when needed. This way you could have high quality with the best size possible.
Looking around I see that XSVCD has many high bitrates to choose from but the bitrates are constant. Am I missing something?

Thanks

[JHebert]

Check the "What Is" guides on your left for clarification of these terms.
XSVCD does not necessarily mean variable bitrate encoding. Both regular SVCD and XSVCD can use either constant or variable bitrate.
XSVCD simply means any variation of SVCD outside of the official standard specifications. The standard includes cbr or vbr mpeg-2 up to 2600Kbs, mpeg-1 layer 1 or 2 audio from 32 to 384Kbs, and resolution of 480x480 for NTSC or 480x576 for PAL video.
XSVCD for example might have higher bitrate such as 3500Kbs, or non-standard resolution like 720x480 or 352x480 or even 352x240. The reasons for doing this are usually to obtain better quality, or to fit more minutes of video on a cd-r. However compatibility of XSVCD and XVCD with your DVD player is not guaranteed so you need to experiment and check the DVD Player guides on this site.

[monteie]

Thanks