Higher resolution = better quality?

[m1000]

Converting Divx to S,X,Vcd using TMPGenc.

All the divx movies are in low resolution.
Does converting them into a xvcd with a resolution 720x576
(are supported on my standalone DVD)
give a better result or is there no need for using a higher resolution
than the source?

How do I get the most out of my Divx movies?

Another thing:
none of my Xvcd run smooth. About every 2. sec or so it lacks.
Why is that?

Hope you can get my some answers, because I am tired of using 2 disc
after converting from Divx and then get a lower quality than the source.

[vcdfreak]

MPEG-1 (VCD) - 352x288(PAL), 352x240(NTSC)
MPEG-2 (DVD) - 752x576(PAL Full Screen), 752x480(NTSC Full Screen)

It depends on what you want as your final converted format.

[Daagar]

If the original DivX file is low resolution to begin with, you will not gain quality by converting to a larger size. That being said, you can still go to a larger size within reason without killing your quality. For example, a 640x272 DivX can go to 704x272 (adding borders to fill to 704x480) without a problem. Just make sure to use some form of bicubic resize rather than bilinear.

However, if your DivX is much smaller than this, your best best is to drop to 352x480 or 352x240. This way you'll be resizing 'down' so you won't be stretching the video.