DivX to MEPG2 Conversion Compression Bitrate Question

[smv51]

I am converting DivX and wmv files to MPEG2 and have no problem doing this, but my question is concerning compression. I know that DivX and wmv have a better compression to quality ratio than MPEG2.

When converting from DivX or wmv to MPEG2 should I increase bit rate in order to retain quality? If so, by how much should I increase it? I don't want to encode an MPEG2 file at 8000kpbs when my source is an avi at 700kpbs if it is not necessary. In other words I don't want to create files bigger than they need to be without any quality benefit.

[shiny#3]

i have read about the lossless compression capabilities of divx
and wmv (which uses mpeg4 v2 in your case I assume) compared to mpeg2 a long time ago, back then it was between 3.5 :1
and 4.0:1 depending on the codec used.

now maybe they improved it!

regarding that you can run multipass encoding on your
divx/wmv file I would choose a bitrate between 2100 an 2800
kbits/s if you don´t want to store redundant information.

if you have a decent resizer working add 200 kilobits.
If you intend to encode to SVCD format do not supergo
about 2376 kbits in average!!


good luck