Crisp Text for Mpeg1

[nijk]

I have made a movie which incorporates a large amount of text animation.
I can only use Mpeg1 file format as my target format for important reasons.

My problem is that when I convert to Mpeg format I get really pixelated text which looks terrible.
This is my current working order:

Firstly I make a movie in After Effects which I render as an Apple Intermediate Codec (Quicktime Movie) at maximum quality. The result is a nice clean, crisp movie which works well.

I then take this movie to Sorenson Squeeze to convert it to Mpeg1 format. I use 1-pass VBR method and I have used Data Rates of between 3000 and 10000 Kbps. The quality is always substantially lower than that of the quicktime movie, most noticably on the text.

I am aware that Mpeg compression is more lossy than that of a quicktime movie, but is there any way to clean up the edges of the text?

[jpschuck]

What's the resolution of you movie, and what is the size of the text ?

[nijk]

The resolution is 720 x 526

The text varies from 36 point to 80 point

[jpschuck]

The resolution is 720 x 526

The text varies from 36 point to 80 point

At this resolution your bitrate should better at least be 4600 kbps (PAL) or 5500 kbps (NTSC). Then the text should be readable (36 point, this is bigger than standard subtitles) providing you're using a sufficiently contrasted layout.
You may also apply some additional filters (sharpening...) when exporting to Apple Intermediate Codec.

If you still think that there is too much noise you can also try an other MPEG encoder such as ffmpeg (included in ffmpegX) which allows you to set a very low quantizer (and thus minimaal quality loss).