Output

[thecoalman]

Yes that would be me. Everyone else reading this is going......hmmmmmm how'd he know that.

[rdsatkaycee]

not if they pay attention!

[GeorgeW]

The bitrate is how much information is used per scond to encode your file. 6000kbps or 6000 kilobits per secoond is an average one that is used. If you lower the bitrate you can fit more more video on the disc but this also lowers the quality. That's what DVD shrink does, it takes your video and lowers the rate to fit it on disc. You can use the the bitrate calculator to determine what bitrate to use according to how long your footage is.

The type of transcoding that programs like DVD Shrink do are not exactly the same as the orignal encoding as done by the mpeg encoder.

They reduce the bitrate/filesize of the mpeg file using a "DCT-Domain Transcoder." This re-uses certain sections of the original encode (the motion vectors that are harder to calculate), while it transcodes the other sections. By re-using the motion vectors, they save time -- so the overall transcode goes by much quicker than if you were to re-encode the entire video.

If your final bitrate uses a very low bitrate, then I think it's possible to get better results by first encoding at a high bitrate, and then using a Shrink program to do the DCT-Domain Transcode (some shrinking programs are better than others). But it depends on the percentage of the "shrinking"

I'm not sure if the Ulead 'Fit to disc' re-encodes at a lower bitrate, or if it does the DCT-Domain Transcode technique.