What am I missing?

No matter what I change about bitrates for the .mpg output, the resulting files size is always the same and exactly equal to the MPEG 1 standard bitrates. I've seen the article on furiousg.com and even created the same exact settings, but the file size is the same. I've even put the video bitrate down so low it kills the quality and the file size comes out the same. I'm just trying to make smaller files for downloading & computer viewing.

What am I missing?

How low are you putting it at?Generally you can"t put it lower than like 800-900kbs,cuz less that that would not create a viable picture.And it seems that tmpgenc has a minimum bitrate it will work with cuz the program is for encodeing avi to a high quality mpeg file and you can"t do that with out a minimum bitrate,What would you expect to do if you set the bitrate at 50kbs or zero?Tmpgenc isn"t going to work for hours to create nothing..I have doen the same thing and tried to encode at rediculously low bitrates just to see what it would do,and it would allways make a file much bigger than i set it at..You should just leave your files in avi/divx format for watching on your computer, turning them into mpeg won"t make them look better or make them smaller ,it will do just the opposite.....

Thanks for your message.

My intent is not to set the bitrate extremely low, I just mentioned that I tried to do it as test to see if the file size would change. I would be happy if I can reduce the size of a 15 second clip from 2.6 MB to say 1.0 or 1.5 MB. I know this can be done and it seems TMPG Enc is the best tool to do it. When I try to make AVI files smaller the quality is too poor.

You can see movies that are very good for viewing but very small for download at the web site http://www.furiousg.com . Also there is an article there explaining how the files are created using TMPG Enc. However, now matter what I try my file size result is always the same as the standard VCD bitrates!

I am using the free trial version of TMPGEnc. Do you think I need to purchase it to unlock it?

I am afraid to pay the money if I can't use it for my purpose, but I am happy to pay for it does do what I am seeking.

There is nothing to unlock ,the demo is pretty much like the plus version you pay for,as for trying to get your 15 second avi to 1.5 mb in mpeg, you can get it close but but not quite ,the smallest you will be able to get it is about 7mb per minute believe me I have tried it many times, maybe the older versions will encode at the really low bitrates like below 700kbs,what you should try which i have had exelent results with if your not makeing vcd"s is to convert your avi"s to "wmv"you can get increadibly small file sizes at really high bitrates and good quality,but i usually use divx4.12 for encodeing avi"s with high quality and fairly small file sizes..

In take it you are trying to create MPEG1 files.
At a guess I would say you are loading the VCD template and then just 'unlocking' it with the 'unlock.mcf' template.
The reason therfore that you are having a problem reducing the file size no matter what bitrate you choose is simply down to the fact that you are now creating a non standard VCD, but you haven't changed the settings accordingly.

In this cause you need to go to Setting>System and change the 'stream type' to 'MPEG1 VCD(non standard)'.
It happens because TMPG automatically adds padding to the MPEG, when you choose the standard VCD template, to keep the minimum bitrate within standard VCD specs no matter how low you set the bitrate.

There is an easy way to remove the padding of the files you have already encoded which will reduce the file size to what they should have been.
Just load the MPEG into the 'simple multiplex' in MPEGtools and choose 'MPEG1 VCD(non standard)' as the type from the drop down menu and run, the padding will be removed and should reduce the file size.

In future if you create a VCD which is not standard always choose the 'MPEG1 VCD(non standard) option as the 'type'.

ASHY

Thank you, ASHY, my problem is solved. This bit of info is what I was missing:

ASHY Wrote:
.........

>In this cause you need to go to Setting>System and change the 'stream type' >to 'MPEG1 VCD(non standard)'.
>It happens because TMPG automatically adds padding to the MPEG, when you >choose the standard VCD template, to keep the minimum bitrate within standard >VCD specs no matter how low you set the bitrate.
........

>In future if you create a VCD which is not standard always choose the 'MPEG1 VCD(non standard) option as the 'type'.
>
>ASHY