Why is the output so big?

[Taz21]

I have a 280mb avi.(MPEG-1 512x288 23.976fps CBR 1150kbps, Layer-2 48000Hz 192kbps) and whenever I use TMPGEnc to convert it to a VCD (NTSCfilm), the output becomes 920mb. Is there any way to make the output smaller?
Can anybody help me out here?

[lava - tree]

dont really understand why the output is bigger
but you could try to drop the bitrate on the sound...maybe?

[Vejita-sama]

The size of the source has NOTHING to do with the size of the encoded MPEG file. The MPEG file size is based on the bitrate you use. For the standard VCD template thats: video=1150kbit/s & audio=224kbit/s. This works out to 1min=10MB. In this case I assume you have ~94min video source.

There are several ways you can proceed. You can lower the bitrate to fit the all 94min on 1x 80min CDR. Or spilt the file onto 2x 80min CDRs and raise the bitrate. Generally speaking the higher the bitrate the better the picture, but you can not raise teh bitrate (or change the resolution) to produce a MPEG of better quaility then the source (I assume you hae a DivX file so...)

Click on 'Tools' to the left, and open a bitrate calculator (the vcdhelp.com one is fine). Choose either xVCD or SVCD (it doesn't matter, bitrates are the same). Enter you desired info and you'll get a video bitrate to use.

If you use this number to encode either CBR (constant bitrate) or 2pass VBR (varibale bitrate) in TMPGenc.

[Vejita-sama]

Oh, yeah. Check the DVD Players list to make sure your DVD player supports xVCD. Changing the bitrate, resolution, or encoding method creates an xVCD and not all DVD players will read/play them (although most of do).