Having trouble with Bitrate settings in SVCD conversion

[FnkyChkn]

I have an AVI/AC3 file that I am trying to convert to svcd. I went to environmental options and increased priority of Directshow filters so that it could mux the sound and avi file together, but now am having a problem with the bitrate setup. I was trying to follow the svcd guide for Tmpgenc here at vcdhelp, but seem to come out with no sound/video.

It works if I just set a constant bitrate. The movie is 61 minutes and 49 seconds, and I want to fit it on one 80 minute cd. So under constant bitrate settings, I put it to 1527 and it seemed to work (did a short sample). But I want to see if it can work with 2-pass VBR since the guide says it gives better quality. But with the settings as:

Average bitrate: 1527
Maximum bitrate: 2496
Minimum bitrate: 0

I don't get anything with those settings. Should I be enabling padding? Is there an incorrect setting with the bitrates I input?

Also, the video locks up if I set Constant bitrate at 2496, so is that an indication I need to stick with the calculated bitrate of 1527?

Thnx to any who can help.

[FnkyChkn]

One other thing: When I attempt to use 2-pass vbr, I attempt a sample, but there isn't even an output file! Does this have something to do with the enviromental settings I set? Should I set it up so that the input audio is from a saved wav/mp3 file and is muxed into the video?

Again, thnx to any who can help (and make sense of what I am saying) ;P

[bugster]

Whne using 2pass VBR in TmpGenc, the 1st pass does not actually produce any sort of output. So you must let the progress bar exceed 50% before it will start to write anything to disk.