Basic question

[victoriabears]

If a mpeg capture(or recording from dvd recorder) is at 720 x 480 resolution and , say , 4000 kbs bit rate, would re-encoding it to a higher bitrate , better the image, thinking of a 135 min recording that has edited out the commercials as an example.

Thanks

[mats.hogberg]

No. Every (re)encode further deteriorates the video quality.

/Mats

[Epicurus8a]

Re-encoding it to a high bit rate would not improve the image at all. It would simply make the file bigger, and thereby increase the possibility of burn errors.

[smearbrick1]

It's not the size of the file that matters...

It's the quality of that file.

[Soopafresh]

That's what she said

[Supreme2k]

If you had an original file that was of a higher bitrate, it would work, say DV-AVI or higher MPG.

It's already been said, but you can't make more from what you got. Kind of like tryingf to make one dollar "better" by exchanging it for 100 pennies.

[mats.hogberg]

Kind of like tryingf to make one dollar "better" by exchanging it for 100 pennies.

But in this case, there's even a fee, so you'll end up with 95 pennies (at the very best).

/Mats

[victoriabears]

Thanks everyone, I did do a test, a dvd recording at 352 x 480 @ 9558 kps, and re=encoded it using tmpgenc at 720 x 480 and it came out looking slightly more fuzzy.

I guess that the only way would be putting the original through hardware processing?

[mats.hogberg]

I guess that the only way would be putting the original through hardware processing?

What do you mean by original?
Anyway, there are 2 reasons why your reencode looks more fuzzy. First, it's reencoded, which at the very best (given enough bitrate) should go unnoticed, but in practice will lower the quality. Then, and in this case probably the main culprit, you've resized up which should be avoided.
But your test doesn't match your original question about reencoding a "high res" low bitrate video to a "high res" high bitrate video - you've reencoded a "low res" high bitrate video to "high res" unknown (high?) bitrate video.
Using hardware or software processing doesn't affect this simple principle: Resizing and/or reencoding can never improve quality.

/Mats