Producing MPEG-1 Files

From about 1997 to 2002, MPEG-1 was probably the most popular video codec in the universe. Today, however, it's surpassed in quality by many different technologies, including MPEG-2, Windows Media, RealVideo, and Sorenson Video 3. Its sole advantage today is that MPEG-1 files are almost universally playable, on Macs, Windows PCs, Linux desktops, and pretty much any other UNIX flavor. So, if your audience includes a broad range of playback systems, consider MPEG-1.

When rendering to MPEG-1 format, the interface should look much like Figure 7.14. Use a video resolution of 320x240, not 352x240, which is a nonsquare pixel resolution incorrectly used by many encoders. You should be able to produce very good quality at a combined audio/video data rate of 1,600 to 2,000Kbps slightly higher if your video has very high-motion sequences.