I've been quite successfully converting downloaded videos to SVCD for some time now, so now that I have all the basics out of the way, I thought I might start looking at using the filters to maybe improve things a little.

The thing I dislike the most and notice the most is the inevitable smoothing of the picture that happens each time a video gets reduced in pixel size and recompressed. I would like to start experimenting with the Sharpen Edge filter first to see if I can get some of this lost sharpness back a bit.

For typical mainstream Hollywood release kind of films (nothing unusual like Anime or anything), what would be a good starting point settings wise to use the Sharpen Edge filter at?

I don't want to do multiple test encodes/burns. I'd much rather conduct the testing while I'm watching what I download in a real world use situation - thus killing two birds with one stone - but it would be helpful if someone with experience of using this filter could provide some shortcuts.

Thanks