Now that I can edit these files, I am investigating quality enhancements.

I have noticed that capturing at 2.8 MBPS gives a file with an average bitrate close to 2.8, peaks about 4500. Interesting that after editing commercials the average bitrate dropped to 1900. Also capturing from Digital cable gives dramatically smaller filesizes than analog capture with same settings.

I am guessing that ATI is using some sort of CQ type encoding algorithm.

Remove 3:2 pulldown does seem to eliminate approx 5 frames per second, and significantly reduce filesize. The file still indicates 29 FPS, and at least in WinDVD or on my Apex plays back fine. I can edit a continous movie done this way, by edit I mean split in half, but a movie with commercial interruptions I can not do multiple cuts.

Deinterlacing seems to smooth motion in playback, also decrease pixelation and filesize.

Overall quality using 480x480, 2.8 bitrate, 100 Motion Estimate, DeInterlacing and Visual Masking, Stinky's Regtool used to set Quality to 6, I think comes out pretty good. Acceptable for most casual use, AND they get better with each CPU upgrade.

I'd be interested to hear other's methods and quality suggestions.