Hey there - i just used DVD2SVCD - which RULES by the way, cuz i'm lazy - i like it simple, after all the times of fussing to get compliance. anyhow - in the bitrate area, i told it if the movie was up to 115 min, then use 1 CD (80min) 790MB. well it spit a value of 760 at me for the avg. bitrate - i said "ewww" but i figured what the heck lets see... it looked pretty good! certainly better than VCD, and it fits on 1 disc...
the max bitrate was set to 2400 , min to 300
max avg is 2000 , min avg is 760
now, the movie doesnt have a lot of high motion, that could be it, so i'm going to test it on some other movie...