Hias,
I messed aroud with kwags new Beta template to fit 'Apocalypse Now Redux' (195 mins) on 2 CDs in the best possible quality. I did not have much luck with the 352x576 and 704x templates so I began to experiment with the 352x288 template. Since I rather dont like that resolution for the lack of details I decided to encode in anamorphic format, still not satisfied I raised the horizontal resolution to SVCD standard expecting that my standalone player would vomit pixels all over the screen.
I was wrong!
Test encodings are 6,5 to 9,5 MB per Minute with room for further optimizing.
Settings:
480x288 mpeg2 16:9 stream, motion estimate search
CQ 63 min 700 max 2200, padding not enabled (couldnt get good results from CQ_VBR and didnt had time to experiment, min 700 recomended by Andreas, not much compression lost and an much better image in still scenes)
Image croped to 448x272 (Apocalypse Now is 2:1 embeded in an 16:9 stream)
kwags new quantize matrix (best compression with still good image... congrats kwag)
Gop changed to 1/3/3/1 (as Andreas recomended, pixel pumping is nealry gone with just a bit compression lost)
Soften block noise: intra 10 non intra 5 (bit more compression, cant tell the difference with and without regarding image quality)
128 Kbit/s sound (nothing changed here)
cheers
Rookie