one 2+ hour movie 2xsvcd

[pyst]

Is there any good reason to make svcd instead of xvcd when high bitrates aren't being utilised when you squeeze anything into small spaces? When you make a 2+ hour movie fit on to 2 svcds with a higher bitrate 2500+ do you really get that bitrate?

After much trial and frustration I think I've finally settled on using a realistic CQ setting of 500 low 1100 high 100% quality to make an xvcd of 144 minutes. The result looks no worse than anything else I've tried

[sterno]

Quality is very subjective, and it also depends on your source and your TV. I've found that even when I encode SVCD with an average bitrate of under 1100 it often comes out looking better than most VCDs (to my taste). Depending on the material and how you encode it you may or may not actually see the bitrate come close to the minimum and maximum settings.

I can't really make any comparison against a VBR XVCD, though. My player does not play VBR MPEG-1, though SVCDs and both low- and high-bitrate CBR XVCDs work (I mainly use low-bitrate, to fit around 90 minutes on one disc). If you're concerned about widespread compatibility you might keep in mind that VBR MPEG-1 isn't all that well supported by many players, but if you never take your movies to your friends' houses to watch you can just do the research before you buy your next player and you'll be fine.

There have been quite a few debates about XVCD and SVCD, people who like one will never change to the other. If you're happy with what you're doing, just keep doing it.

[pyst]

I guess that means that it's not always a case of what's best but what is more suitable.

There are so many settings in tmpg that you have to wonder if you are doing things right when people boldly suggest that something is the 'best' and you can't see it yourself.

Someone suggested CVD so I gave it a test to see what results it gave. I was surprised to find that the file size on the mpeg2 352x480 clip was almost the same as the mpeg1 352x240 clip. Is that usual? ( all the other settings were the same.