I enter 352x288, but it always produces 320x240

[markwm]

I have real problems getting ffmpegx to honour the resolution I want. It just seems to output whatever it wants. Despite the fact 352x288 is a valid resolution, ffmpegx outputs 320x240 using mpeg2enc

[jagabo]

352x288 is not a valid resolution for NTSC VCD or DVD (it's for PAL, and note you are using an NTSC frame rate). Maybe that's why it's automatically switching to 352x240.

[Case]

You can't trust the Finder information on resolution for MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 files, as that comes through QuickTime. And QuickTime re-calculates the resolution from the file to another number that matches how QuickTime Player would display the file.

I'm sure someone on the QT dev team thought it was smart, but it isn't, as 'resolution' is not the same as 'default display size', while they present it as such. (It has to do with displaying 352x288 in a 4:3 window, in effect squeezing and/or stretching the video to fit.)

If you drop your output file back onto ffmpegX, you'll see that it recognizes the true resolution in the Source Format section. The same goes for any other app that reads the resolution of MPEG files, besides QuickTime.