Re: Letterboxing - reduces file size?

David,

though I'm not highly experienced with these things, I'd be surprised if your letterbox solution would make a substantial difference, in terms of improving quality at a given bitrate.

What you don't mention -- and what's probably the key to your question -- is: what encoder are you using to get your MPEG2 file? If it's simply the Canopus SoftEncoder (that's perhaps included with the Rex package?), perhaps your so-so results may be attributed to the middling quality of this encoder. I've sometimes gotten middling results using the StormEncoder -- a hardware encoder that works with DVStorm; but if I'm not mistaken, the underlying codec is the same SoftEncoder. Anyway, I very much look forawrd to working with ProCoder (when I vinally shell out the $600-$700 for that new, ambidextrous software encoding tool from Canopus); it can (among other things) do multi-pass variable bitrate encoding. In general, multipass variable bitrate encoding is likely the best solution for your situation.

At a much cheaper price (but needing longer encode sessions, and evidently a longer learning curve) you could also use TmPENGc [sorry I forget the arcane spelling convention; aka Tsunami), free (or nearly free) . . .

/ / /

others can perhaps finetune this line of advice beyond these general pointers; but the gist is: the fault lies not in our aspect ratios, but in our encodings, that we are underlings.

cheers,
d.i.

david raphael israel
other shore dvd
washington, dc
davidi@wizard.net