svcd question on encoding birate

[burnedbynero]

i have a hi val 24x10x40 burner with nero and im trying to make a svcd. In the encoding birate section there are two check boxes to choose from, one is try to fit disk size(which is self explanitory) and the other is user defined(when checked 150 KB/s thru 300 KB/s is choosable). My question is when making a svcd and i choose user defined what number should i choose to make a good svcd?

[banjazzer]

To make a good quality SVCD I would not use Nero. You will get much better quality using TMPGEnc to ecode to mpeg-2, and then use Nero to burn your SVCD.

[burnedbynero]

would that be explained on the how to convert section of this web page?

[ya_jai]

Using NERO might be the easiest way but quality is sux. I agree with bajazzer that you should try TMPEGEnc. Using TMPGEnc is not very hard there are plenty of guides here in this forum and you can find free version as well.

[banjazzer]

would that be explained on the how to convert section of this web page?

The method using TMPG in the convert section will produce excellent results, but is based around encoding at constant bitrate. Typically you will only get around 35 minutes per CD. I would prefer to use TMPG's 2-pass VBR or CQ encoding methods, but I don't think they are described on this site. 2-pass VBR is the easiest method using TMPG's Project Wizard. This will allow you to accurately choose the bitrate to fit most movies to 2 CDs (allowing about 50-60 minutes per CD). This process is essentially lengthy, though, because 2 passes are needed - the first to assess the best allocation of bits for the encode.

I prefer TMPG's CQ mode which takes half the time but you need to do a couple of test encodes to estimate the final size of the mpeg.

If you fancy trying either method, try setting the max bitrate to 2520 and min bitrate to 300 (for CQ and 2-pass VBR). Using CQ with a quality setting of 75-85 will give excellent quality, but, as I said before, the final filesize will be unpredictable. 8)