Question re: re-encoding downloaded material for DVD burning

[MikeMGMVE]

HOPEFULLY I'm posting this in the right forum, my apologies, if I'm not.

I've downloaded plenty of material (musical performances, music videos, etc) from the net, and plan to put them on my own personal DVDs. In the process I'm re-encoding the majority of them from PAL to NTSC.

I use TMPGEnc. When I'm converting them, using their DVD NTSC template - when I get to the last step - should I lower the encoding bitrate? I mean, there's no reason for the bitrate to be of dvd quality, when the source videos may only be SVCD quality, correct?

I ask, only because if I were to lower the bitrates, to the standard SVCD rate, or a bit higher, and create smaller sized video files, I'd obviously be able to fit alot more videos, and footage onto each disc. I just want to make sure this won't backfire on me, and I lose all my original videos.

Thanks for any help!

~Michael

[guns1inger]

Encoding at even the same bitrate will, in all likelihood, reduce the quality. Determine how much footage you want to fit on the disk (total runtime) and calculate the appropriate bitrate. If you feel you can allocate a lower bitrate to some parts in order to up the bitrate in others, do so. However, remember this. By using the DVD template, you are increasing the resolution. If you maintain the same bitrate as it was for an SVCD, you will reduce quality. There is no way around this. Higher resolutions require a higher bitrate as more data needs to be transfered.

The only way to know for sure if you will be happy is to test it out. Encode a representative clip at different bitrates, then compare them by authoring a disk. Then you will know what works for your setup.

[Krispy Kritter]

First: keep copies while you experiment

Second: As long as your clips meet DVD specs ( look on the left under "WHAT IS" DVD ), then they should be fine. There is no reason to take a PAL 352x288 mpeg1 clip and turn it into a NTSC 720x480 mpeg2 clip. Keep the resolutions and bit rates similar and all should be good.

I've have heard of some players having issues when multiple different file formats are on the same disc.