What's best way to make (S)VCD out of 640X240 6Mbit/s mp2's?

[tluxon]

I have captured a number of videos I would like to preserve on CD using SVCD or VCD. The captured files were saved with a ATI AIW 7500 video card using the "good" setting in MMC. This saved MPEG-2 files at 640X240 resolution, 44.1kHz audio, and 6 MBits/second bitrate. I really don't want to lose any resolution if I can help it.

So far, I've found that my player (Panny CP72) does best playing VCD (352X240, 1.15 MBit/sec) or SVCD (480X480, 2.5 MBit/sec), but these files are not encoded that way.

How can I best preserve these video files?
What's the most compatible format for good preservation?
What software can most easily do what I need to do? How 'bout inexpensive or free software?
If I need to cut out commercials and such?
If I just want to save existing file without edits?

Thanks,

Tim

[tluxon]

bump

Okay, is there even a way?

[edit]
I'm not sure, but it seems like I might have to use DVD2AVI, then VirtualDub, then TMPGEnc.

Am I even getting close?

[tluxon]

Well, I'm not getting a lot of feedback, so I figure this is either so complicated that hardly anyone knows how to do it, or so simple that it's beneath everyone to try to explain it.

I'm sure someone could've saved me a lot of time, but so far this is what I've come up with:

1. I follow the instructions here for converting SVCD or MPEG2/MP2 files to VCD (or SVCD or DVD).

2. I got a template for KVCDx3 and copied it into the templates folder under TMPGEnc.

3. I open the saved .mp2 file with DVD2AVI and check the type of video stream and the framerate. Then, I save the project, using a name such as "temp". Both a "video file" and an "audio file" are created. This does not actually convert the mp2 file but allows TMPGEnc to open the video and audio.

4. I start TMPGEnc and open the project "files". I load the appropriate template (in my case I'm using KVCD NTSC which I'm setting to 352X480 with a framerate of 29.97), and encode. This is when the new .mpg file is generated.

5. Using TMPGEng, I ensure that the file is in no larger than 80 min chunks.

6. I then use NERO to burn non-comliant vcd's.

So far it's looking like this will work, but I'm just doing my first one now. Boy, is this slow!