Bitrate question

[CSULB71]

I just downloaded and tried the vso “DivX To DVD” application, and am very impressed with the output. As long as you don’t need a menu, this is the way to go! I used a clip from a VHS tape converted thru my camcorder using WINDV and the Panasonic DV codec, (resolution was 720 x 480) and it made the DVD files conversion in about 2.5 times the running time of the clip, compared to 5 to 6 times for Ulead MovieFactory2 SE. And, even though there was roughly a 3 to 1 compression, I can’t tell any difference between the original DV-AVI and the VOB/MPEG.
But, I do have a question about the video bitrates involved. VirtualDubMod shows the original AVI as “Data rate = 28,771 kbps (0.02% overhead)”, and the VOB/MPEG as “Average bitrate = 8827 Kbps (1078 KB/s)”. What confuses me is the info for the VOB/MPEG: what is the difference between the two values; aren’t they both reporting “kilobits per second”?

[Baldrick]

First is Kilobit/s and second is KiloByte/s. And 8 bit = 1 byte.
http://www.t1shopper.com/tools/calculate/

[CSULB71]

Aha!... (said the computer illiterate one) So I'll just ignore the second value reported by VirtualDub... the average bit rate is the important one. But isn't my VOB/MPEG average of 8827 Kbps on the high side for DVD, possibly causing a problem with some DVD players?
And, thanks for the link... that will come in handy in the future.

[Baldrick]

check the bitrate with something else like bitrate viewer.

[bugster]

Aha!... (said the computer illiterate one) So I'll just ignore the second value reported by VirtualDub... the average bit rate is the important one. But isn't my VOB/MPEG average of 8827 Kbps on the high side for DVD, possibly causing a problem with some DVD players?
And, thanks for the link... that will come in handy in the future.

The max bitrate for DVd-Video is 9800 Kbps (thats for video only, combined video and audio max is 10008 Kbps).

[CSULB71]

OK guys, thank you for the answers. Even tho the high video bitrate "DivX To DVD" uses by default is overkill for my VHS source, it's good to know it shouldn't cause problems with DVD players.

[guns1inger]

The bitrate is calculated based on the length of video and space to fill. Your video is short enough to allow for a lot of overhead. Yes, it's probably overkill, but that's how the caluclation plays out.

If you were encoding this yourself from scratch you would probably choose to use a lower bitrate, and maybe even half-D1 resolution (given it is a VHS source), but you would then have a lot of empty space on the disk.