Your card and equipment sound fine.

I'd ditto a VBR capture, and then 5.0 MB/s max on 352x480 with avg about 3.9 MB/s.

Be sure you get ZERO dropped frames.

Be sure to LEAVE INTERLACE ALONE and then keep motion to 95-99%

Test on a DVD+RW or DVD-RW on tv set to see real results. You cannot judge quality on a PC monitor with video.

As others have said, read my site again a few times. It's a lot to take in, I know, but in time you should understand concepts. I'll be making an update by the 15th, so it'll have more info and be even more organized than it is now.

If TMPGENC DVD AUTHOR gives an error, be sure ATI's IPB pattern is set to 1-4-2 delta, otherwise TMPGENC chokes (bug in authoring software, not my fault).