How much MPEG2 for good DVD quality?

[yogart]

I want to get good quality video for home videos encoded to MPEG2 on my DVD. Is there a good rule that I should consider like burn only one hour for the full DVD vs 2 hours for good quality?

[BJ_M]

make sure your source material is the highest quality is the most importaint thing ..

then use the bit rate calc here to work out your bit rate -- highest quality can be obtained (with good encoder and good source material) at between 4000 - 9000 bit rate .. depending on the type of home material you are encoding .. (pron doesnt require much - but running water requires a lot)

[cona812]

Use a good encoder and multipass vbr not under 4000Kbits/s. Best encoder I tried is cinecraft 2.6x (but it is very expensive) good to is Tmpgenc (free). calc the bitrate for best use of DVD-R space like BJ_M said.

[BJ_M]

tmpgenc is not free for mpeg2 -- just to clarify .. but its darn cheap

[Mxbubs]

My file sizes of 2 gigs for 2 hour movies look darn good....Im prolly making them at 3500-4800kbps.....