Color Spaces and Encoding Issues

[Soopafresh]

I'm realizing the more I learn about this stuff, the less I understand. Some questions that may be dumb to some, but they are holes in my knowledge:

How do I figure out the color space of my source file ? Is there a reference chart that says all HDTV transport streams are RGB, or all XVID encoded AVIs are YUV ?

Is it even the file that determines this, or is it the encoder software?

Are there any rules of thumb about how to maintain source file colors when encoding to MPEG2, or converting to XVID ?

I don't know if I'm even asking the right questions

Thanks.

[Soopafresh]

Nevermind, found a site which explains it.

http://www.fourcc.org/index.php?http%3A//www.fourcc.org/yuv.php

[celtic_druid]

Not sure if you got this but like all MPEG-4 material XviD always uses YV12 as a colourspace.

MPEG2 excluding studio profiles is also always YV12 as is MPEG1 and most other lossy compressors.

[Soopafresh]

Thanks Celt.