Best quality possibly

[badly_drawn]

I want to encode a dvd to 3 xvcd. My question is: how do i do this with the best possible quality? Which size should the xvcd's be, 720x576 or 352x288? Please help me!

[xzarkad]

How do you want to see your movies? On a PC, or on a standalone DVD player?

If you use a standalone DVD player, you might first check which formats are supported by the standalone.

How do you want to encode; using Mpeg1, or Mpeg2? In my opinion Mpeg2 has a better quality than Mpeg1. Not only the resolution is important, but also (if not more) the bitrate. For example: an XVCD with an average bitrate of 2000 and a resolution of 720x576, will look worse than a XVCD with an average birate of 2000 and a resolution of 480x576.
Then consider this; some standalone players have a maximum resolution output of 500 lines. In such a case, it is useless to have more lines in your Mpeg file.
And last: how do you want to encode; CBR, VBR with one or more passes? A 480x576 Mpeg2 with 3 pass VBR, will look better than a 720x576 Mpeg1 1 pass VBR.

[poopyhead]

mpeg 2 has better compression.

set motion search accuracy to high quality (slow)

use 2 pass vbr if possible, if not, use cq_vbr, never use cbr

higher supported resolution is better (resolution will not affect file size but will improve quality) however, make sure the resolution is standard and support by your standalone dvd player

higher bitrate is always better (upto a certain point) however, filesize increases a crapload