Hi!

I've a question regarding the "Enable Padding" setting in TMPGEnc. I've encoded a part of a DVD movie in VBR (1150 min, 1800 max, 1455 average) without checking the box "Enable Padding". I chose a 1455 average bitrate to completely fit an 80 min CD but it turned out that the resulting file had a size significantly smaller than the expected.

I did another try with the same settings but this time checking the box "Enable Padding", getting a file with the "right" size, according to the average bitrate.

However I'm not sure that this increase in the filesize, due to the padding, goes on with an increase in video quality.

If this were not the case, I guess that I could increase the average bitrate above the theoretically bitrate needed to fit a CD, to obtain a file with a greater size to "really" fit a full CD and getting also a real increase in video quality.

Am I right or is this strategy useless?

In any case, the MPEG file I got without the "Enable Padding" option enable and a reduced filesize could be burnt to a CDRW with VCDEasy and played in my stand-alone player without any problems, except for the count time that was wrong (something I don't really care too much).

Thanks in advance
Giskard