Question about bitrates/encoding

[Pericles]

I just got a DVD burner and I would like to encode all of my .avi and .mpg files already on my harddrive to DVD compliant .mpgs. Most of my files have a video bitrate of 1150kbps. When using TMPGEnc or Mainconcept, should I select constant bitrate and set it at 1150kbps? If I set it much higher, say at 4000kbps, will it be better quality?

Thanks in advance.

[guns1inger]

It sounds like most of your movies are VCD. If this is the case, then increasing the bitrate wont make much difference to the quality. In fact, you can simply increase the sample rate of your audio from 44.1 to 48, and put the movies onto DVD as they are.

As you can see here ( https://www.videohelp.com/dvd ), VCD res/bitrate is within the spec, only the audio needs adjusting. Check out the guides in the HOW TO section on your left to find out more.

[jimmalenko]

Work out if your MPEGs are SVCD, VCD and/or DVD compliant:

www.videohelp.com/vcd
www.videohelp.com/svcd
www.videohelp.com/dvd

If you have VCD or SVCD-compliant files:
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=129786

If you have dvd-compliant files:
Import straight into your authoring software.

For everything else:
http://members.dodo.net.au/~jimmalenko/AVI2DVD.htm

[junkmalle]

Before you bother making movie DVDs out of all your MPEG files try burning a few as data files on ISO or UDF data DVDs. Many DVD players can play "raw" MPEG files on DVDs without conversion to DVD movie format. If your player can do this it will give you a menu with the filenames. Just navigate to the file you want and play it. You won't have pretty graphic menus but it's fast and easy.

[ZippyP.]

If I set it much higher, say at 4000kbps, will it be better quality?

If going from avi to mpeg...
In general, the bitrate of an mpeg needs to be higher than that of a divx-avi to maintain the same quality. How much more? Depends on the resolution that is used but up to twice as much or more. A higher bitrate usually means higher quality up to a point beyond which it won't make much difference. Keep in mind that you can't make it any better than the source, you can only maintain what you already have.

Without knowing the resolution it's pointless to suggest a bitrate.