converted DVD/MPEG2 file looks bad

[soholounge]

hi,
i've tried playing around with lots of different ffmpegx encodes,
divx, h264, mpeg2, etc.
and my question is, why does mpeg2 look so bad?
shouldn't it look the best?

one of my regular projects prefers an mpeg2 file,
but i'm forced to deliver divx (avi) because i can't get an mpeg2 result that looks like DVD quality!
i've tried lots of different ways, playing around with bitrates, etc. but no luck.

any thoughts would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

-pb

p.s. i'm using the latest version of ffmpegx on an intel mac, with otherwise great results.

[major]

You should send some detail about your actual encoding (settings, encoding messages, etc).