I just got Lord of the Rings, how is it with the LBR Template. Or should I just bite the bullet and do two cds. I and thinking of using LBR but pushing up the resolution to 352X480 and get two cds. I can't use KVCDX3 because I have an apex 500w. Any suggestions would be great.

Hi LadyMiles,

Go for the 352x480 PLUS template. It will fit nicely in 2 CD's

-kwag

Thanks Kwag.

Just a question. On one of my post you said that the lbr template is better than the KVCD+ with resolution the same 352X250. If this is true than why not up the lbr's resolution ?

I believe because the LBR template uses _such_ a low bitrate (64min, 1150max), there isn't enough bitrate to create a higer res video with acceptable quality. The reason it works better than KVCD+ at the lower resolution, though, is because of the change made recently to switch templates to CQ_VBR.

Is CQ_VBR just better in general than CQ? If I'm doing an encode without the KVCD matrix and template is CQ_VBR still a better choice than CQ?

You're going to have to experiment with that. The Q. Matrix was optimized with CQ_VBR mode. It works better than with CQ, and produces much smaller files.
I am currently using the LBR with MIN=128Kbps and MAX=2,300Kbps. This produces absolutely blockless mpeg files. I had to increase the MIN from 64 to 128 because on one of my DVD players, it wouldn't play smooth on low lit and low action scenes. And the file size difference is not that much. Increasing the MAX to 2,300Kbps made a huge difference in high action scenes. Still, it will fit 180 minutes of video on a CD-R with acceptable quality. A ~2+ hour film will look better than any standard VCD, because of the MAX bit rate.
Just give DVD2SVCD a try with the kvcd_lbr.ini and matrices.ini files. See if you like the results

-kwag