This site has lots of great info on *how* to convert to different formats. But I am having a hard time getting some good hard info on which is the best format to convert to for a given source.

I want to watch movies using my standalone DVD player, so I know I want to convert to MPEG1 or MPEG2. My player handles non-standard videos, so I'm not concerned about meeting actual VCD or SVCD specs. It also plays both PAL and NTSC, so I know I want to use the same sample rate for the encode as the source. I don't care about the encoding time, so my choice will not depend on that.

But MPEG1 or MPEG2?
When you answer this question, how do these factors enter in:
1. dimensions of source?
2. quality of source?
3. content of source (i.e., movie or TV show)

Mostly right now I'm converting AVI's of 30 min TV shows. For some of them, sound isn't that important, so I'm sure 96kbps mono would be okay, and allow more bitrate for the video.

It would be nice to get 3 per CD, but if that sacrifices quality too much, then 2 per CD is okay, too.

Will a 400 MB VCD have better or worse quality than a 400 MB SVCD? What factors does this question depend on?