Recepie for best quality MPEG ?

[BajIvan]

There have been many threads about MPEG, but somehow I could not collect form them the best recommendations for MPEG encoding. I assume, some of you guys, have done tons of MPEG files, and are more familiar with these little numbers than me.

I am interested in encoding an MJPEG AVI, which for instance is a wedding footage - there is both - slow motion (registry office) as well as fast motion (dance). I would like to achieve for instance 1:4 size compression (at least) keeping the quality high enough to be able to dump the film onto VHS tape.

Now the settings
Bitrate - not too high so that the PC can actually play it
Frame sequence ? IBBPBBP ... ???? which ?
Full pel/Half pel?
VBV size (I could not understand how this is related to the bitrate .. and why if I select 1600KB/sec .. I get "VBV buffer - too small" ???)
Quantization = ?
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These were the settings which I took from the top of my head. There are many more .. but I haven't remembered them yet .. Please include them in your recommendations too.

Which encoder - LSX/Panasonic ?
MPEG1/MPEG2 ?

Thanking in advance

Best regards

Ivan


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PIII500, 64MB, 10.1 GB IBM 7200rpm,
G400DH, 32MB + RR-G