Hi All,
OK I'm back with some results from my tests with (subjective) observations as to visual quality.
Keep in mind that this series of tests included a 192 kbs stereo audio track. Under normal circumstances I would encode the audio externally. These were done this way to conserve time as I was buring these to DVD+RW for viewing on non PC devices.
Also, please note that my goal is not neccasarily to get the absolute best visual quality, but to get reasonable quality with a reasonable file size.
39 Second Test Clip (All encodes at full D1 (720x480))
9,066,500 Standard TMPGenc CQ 65
10,244,100 Original KDVD CQ 65
10,270,724 KDVD with Std Q.Matrix CQ 70
Standard template - Visual quality is horrible.
Original KDVD - Pretty good.
Of the Three in this series the one with the bolded item was by far the best visually.
9,971,716 KDVD & K.MAtrix 2xVBR-2250-1850-300
7,618,564 KDVD & K.MAtrix 2xVBR-2300-1368-300
11,923,460 KDVD & K.MAtrix 2xVBR-3500-2250-300
12,412,932 KDVD & K.MAtrix 2xVBR-5000-2350-300
14,850,052 KDVD & K.MAtrix CQ_VBR 20
Of the five in this series the one with the bolded item was very good at a decent file size. Of course the larger the file the better the quality. The last one using CQ_VBR was the best of the bunch, but the file size was unacceptable.
9,801,732 KDVD & K.MAtrix CQ 65
10,565,636 KDVD & K.MAtrix CQ 70-4000
10,807,300 KDVD & K.MAtrix CQ 70
My favorite of this entire test series is underlined above. It reached a good middle ground between quality and file size.
I found at the default CQ of 65 I could easily see artifacts in the stream, but at 70 they were greatly diminished. The increase in file size could be offset somewhat by lowering the max value, but this would not work in all cases. It'll depend on the content.
Anyway, that's my two cents ......
Later y'all