Is there a decent guide detailing how to choose from various Codecs/formats

[ajmamo]

Can anyone refer me to a decent guide which will explain all the various video & DVD formats/codecs available and the best use for each?

At this stage, to start of with, I simply want to work out the best format to convert my <5min <200mb (that is UP TO 5min/200Mb) MPEG2 movies to squeeze as many as possible to one 4.7Gb DVD to play on standard DVD players, such as carDVD, not computer.

I need to have high quality sound, but the picture could probably suffer a little, but not too much.

Most DVD players have MP3/MPG readers, and it appears some are starting to have DivX.
When I convert my <5min <200mb files to DivX, they come out at <50Mb, and seem to play and sound fine on computer. This is ideal, although my DVD players do not support DivX yet, so perhaps there is an alternative solution for DVD players.

Perhaps someone can recommend a guide that will assist working out the best solution for what I intend to do in this case, and at the same time will give me an decent grounding into the various video options.

[thecoalman]

Can anyone refer me to a decent guide which will explain all the various video & DVD formats/codecs available and the best use for each?
.

For DVD it has to be mpeg2, you can use mpeg1 too: https://www.videohelp.com/dvd

For the smallest filesize convert to mpeg1 @1150 kbps. Anything lower and it's going to start to look pretty bad (to go lower I'm pretty sure you need to use mpeg2). Won't look that great on a big TV but on one of those small ones it should look good. It won't be as small as a file as Divx because Divx compresses better and you can use lower bitrates but if you don't have a Divx player it's not an option.

[daamon]

Hi ajmamo,

I'm not aware of any guides, and would be surprised if the information did exist in a guide - the reason being that the kind of answers you're after are subjective.

There is no "best", just people's opinions on what's good for them in certain circumstances and under certain conditions. As these circumstances and conditions will differ from person to person - so will the "best".

However, there's no reason why you can't use MPEG1 with MP2 audio at 48KHz and a high bitrate (256 kbps?) to get a small-ish file with decent audio.

Then, as you've already said, there's Divx and Xvid - these can hold MP3 audio.

[kschang]

It all depends on the target player.