Can someone explain these encoder settings to me...

We have an exterity encoder box which is used to push a signal from a pc across our TV system, but i don't understand the settings on it, any explanations would be excellent:

Encoder tab.....
First off we can choose between MPEG-2 and MPEG-4, i know what these are but i don't really know the difference.

Display resolution, now in the normal sense of those two words i'd kow what it meant, but there are a few selections that throw me off, here are the selections: VGA, QCIF, QVGA, CIF, Half D1 and D1

The video bitrate goes from 1.5mbps to 15mb

and finally we have a selection to "half frame rate"

Input tab...
Inverse Telecine Mode yes or no?
VCR Mode yes or no?

I'd like to optimise these settings for still images, most of the time we just have power point presentations running over the system, it's quite rare we have videos so could someone both explain the options to me and recommend me the best settings for use with power points?

Thanks for any help here :)

MPG2 is DVD Standardised with a max data rate of 7mbps, with substandards for VCD, SVCD etc.
MPG4 is unstandardised(ish) and allows for higher resolutions / HD.

Resolutions:
CIF = 352x288
qCIF = 176x144
sub-qCIF = 128x96
nHD = 640x360
VGA = 640x480
QVGA = 320x240
WVGA = 800x480
SVGA = 800x600
SVCD = 480x480
VCD = 352x288 or 352x240

D1 & Half-D1:
The DVD resolutions which correspond to the "D1 resolution" are 720×576 (or 704×576) for 625/50 ("PAL" ) systems and 720×480 (or 704×480) for 525/59.94 ("NTSC" ) systems. The "half D1" resolution is simply half of that in the horizontal direction: 352×576 for 625/50 ("PAL" ) systems and 352×480 for 525/59.94 ("NTSC" ) systems. (The pixels in these so-called "half D1" resolutions can be thought of as being double-wide when compared to the "normal" DVD resolutions.) These "halved" resolutions are defined in the official DVD standards, and should be playable on all DVD players, even though the authors of commerical DVDs do not usually use them much. You can use them to save space on a disc when the-material-to-be-encoded does not necessarily warrant the full horizontal resolution.

Inverse Telecine - captures at 29fps and then software scales it back to 24fps.
VCR Mode - auto detects and autoswitches to the input when a signal is present.


The larger the resolution, bitrate & FPS, the more space whatever will take up on the internal disk. It's a case of balancing quality against available disk space.

Thank you Marci, that's excellent information!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mrbios

First off we can choose between MPEG-2 and MPEG-4

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There are quite a few MPEG-4 standards, but the two most common ones are: MPEG-4 Part 2 (Xvid, DivX) and MPEG-4 Part 10 (a.k.a. H.264). The latter being better than the former.