Recommended Seetings for OnTheFly Encoding from Capture?

[SnakEye]

Hi guys.
I got a Q for you since You are the experts in this matter.
I have been using KOEPI's XviD v1.1 file for encoding for a while and everything is really good and I am very happy on the resualts.
but Now I came up with a new project and and I got few questions to ask you guys since I think my seetings are not suitable for the new project any more.
up untill 2day I had a large VOB file that I encoded and that was gr8, but now my new project is Encoding On the fly a Capture stream.
now I know that there is a diffierent between encoding a File to Encoding On the fly capture stream, since when encoding a file the encoder/codec can look ahead and see and know the next frame and so on and base the encoding by it.
while on the fly capture encoding the codec/encoder can never know what will be the next frame (since it's a live stream).
my capture stream is very low resolution and the stream quality is low, but that has nothing to do with the coder but
the stream it self.
we are talking about a resolution os somthing like 276x204 and low quality and 20fps, so I need to base my settings that will give me the maximum quality or in other words the minimum quality lose.
in the other hand I don't want and go crasy with file size , so please keep it in mind.
what would be the "setting" that you recommend me using for Quality for an On-the-Fly encoding of a stream capture material.
here are my settings I am using now and it works gr8 as far as speed and there are no lags , I just don't know if I should be using them or I am better off with a different settings since it's live encoding.
the captured stream material is 20fps (about 276x204).
my encoing speed is about 120FPS (on the settings I am using now )so I should be fine.
My XviD v1.1 Settings:

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/4593/xvid011oq.jpg

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/498/xvid021iu.jpg

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/6351/xvid037dn.jpg

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/279/xvid043gt.jpg

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/4877/xvid050rz.jpg

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/8681/xvid066ow.jpg

[celtic_druid]

Try the realtime profile with a target quantizer of 2.

[SnakEye]

I tried putting it on "Quality preset:real time" and the settings that it shows are aimed on very low, mutch lower then what I have now.

here is what Real time does.

Moition search precision: 1- very low
VHQ mode: 0-off
use VHQ bframe = off
Use chroma = off
Trellis quantizasion = off

it seems that it will only degrade the quality then the one I have now.

I prefer User define settings , can you reccomend the setting that I should be using for the maximum quality or minimum quality lose combined with a reasonable file size?
as I mentioned on my original post , encoding time is not a problem since with the settings that I am running as now (very heavy encoding settings) I am more then behind the minimum FPS (i get 120 fps encoding while my feed is only about 20fps).
please refer to the Images I attached to the original post with all my settings.
Thanks.

[celtic_druid]

The best way to increause quality would be to lower your fixed quant from 4.0. Don't go lower than 2. In fact I would recommedn capping quants to 2-31.

[SnakEye]

what about the rest of the settings?
are they good for live capture (e.g bframe, VHQ,)
or I should use GMC insted , etc..

[celtic_druid]

Well I probably wouldn't normally recommend them since they would eat up too much CPU, but since in your case they don't. I definatly wouldn't recommend GMC. Did you have qpel enabled?

[SnakEye]

Did you have qpel enabled?

no, I havn't tried qpel , should I?
basically you can see all my settings on my original post with the ScreenShots Links.
if you can summaries all the settings that you reccomend
(an addition to the Quant' = 2) and tell me what would you put in (remind you that CPU is not a problem here at all , since we are talking on very small resolution anyway),it will be very helpfull.
thank you, you are a saver.

[celtic_druid]

That's about it. Only thing really left would be to use a higher quality CQM to preserve more detail or to pre-filter to remove noise.

[SnakEye]

That's about it. Only thing really left would be to use a higher quality CQM to preserve more detail or to pre-filter to remove noise.

oohhh, I am a newbie, what is CQM?
how do I pre-filter and remove noise?
BTW - target quant' = 2 rather then =4 , does this have impact on Noise/Graing/etc , or it is mostly just for color?

[celtic_druid]

CQM = Custom Quant Matrix.

A lower quant will preserve more detail (including noise), there will be less macroblocking, etc.

[SnakEye]

[quote=celtic_druid]CQM = Custom Quant Matrix.
quote]

how does one do it?
is there a guide that can help me on it?