Question about size

[Mephij]

I'm rather newbish to this whole scene, so excuse me if this is a dumb question. but today while i was encodig something occured to me. When I've been encodind to mpeg2 with tmpgenc plus I usually set the size to 720X640 (ntsc). I was wondering if I could encode it at 16:9 therefore saving pixels at the top and bottom that would otherwise be wasted on black bars. It would seem that I could get better quality for my bitrate too. Is it possible to encode in 16:9 then during the authoring phase (for DVD) insert the black bars while not using up much-needed space for extra bitrate? if so, how do i go about this process. thanks

[snowmoon]

If you encode anamorphic 16:9 your bitrate requirements will be HIGHER than a 4:3 encode with black bars.