XVCD Vs. SVCD

[tjdmobile]

I am so thankful I stumbled onto this website. I have learned a lot from the forums and articles. I do have a question, however. First off, here's what I use:

AMD Duron, 1 Ghz
256 DDR RAM
40 Gig HD
Belkin Videobus II
TMPGEnc (Love it!)
Virtual Dub (Much better than what came with my setup)

The maximum resolution I capture in Videowave IIIse is 352x288. For some reason in Virtualdub, I can only set 320x240. It tells me that 352x288 is invalid...but that's not entirely my question. I have a DVD Standalong Apex, which does work with SVCD's. I have burned both XVCD's and SVCD's, but haven't really noticed much of a difference in quality. Since I have a low resolution source, is there any point in using the MPEG-2 instead of the MPEG-1, as when I make an SVCD it seems to take more space to store the same quality.

Thanks in advance,
Thom

[therick]

yeah, don't do SVCD...if your source is bad or noisy, upping the res. and bitrate can actually INcrease artifacts and problems...so I would go with mpeg1 with jacked up bitrate...XVCD. Oh and I would say dump the VideoBus if you can only capture at 340x240...stretching the video is going to reduce quality...get a Haupaggue card if you don't have any money...a Pinnacle PCTV Pro if you have a little more $.