Can extra space let me improve VCD quality?

[Danopolitan]

I'm burning a long series of VCDs, each with a video file about 45 minutes long. So really, when I burn these VCDs, I have quite a bit of space left on the disc and still have to stick with the same old quality video.
Before anyone suggests it, I can't burn SVCDs. My player doesn't play them so that's out of the question. I even attempted the VCD header trick, and all I got from the disc was ruffled audio and no picture.
So I have about 25 minutes left on these discs that I don't need (its just a waste of good CDR money now isnt it). Is there anyway I can somehow use this space to increase quality, and somehow keep it a VCD? Or am I stuck with a VCD's similiary to a CD, in that regardless of quality, the length is all that matters...?

[boss]

yes you can increase the picture qaulity and keep the disc a vcd by simply increasing the bitrate. use a bitrate calculator (you can find one on the tool page of this site.) to see how much you can increase the bitrate by and still get 45 minutes on a disc. programs like tmpgenc will allow you to set a higher bitrate. the standard bitrate is 1150. beware though, some dvd players will not play vcd's with a higher than normal bitrate. so burn a cdrw sample disc and see how it plays before you start using cd-r's.

[gadget]

At what video bit rate do you encode? Is it 1150 kbs CBR? I encode my Vcds (XVCDs) at 1600-2000 kbs CBR. By encoding at this rate, you will improve quality but it will take a bit longer encoding. What kind of dvd player do you have? Some players can't handle this kind of encoding. The video skips and the audio won't be sync anymore and skips again and it will be sync again and so on and so forth. I know this from experience.

[Danopolitan]

I have a Toshiba SD2800
And whereabouts on TMPGEnc would I go chaning the bitrate?

[gadget]

Open tmpegenc, go to Setting and then select Video and click on up and down arrows on bitrate. That's it and if you want to save your setting click on Save button below your screen.