Are you doing this by thinking that RMVB gives you the best quality/size? Then you'd be mistaken because it isn't. Plus RMVB doesn't play that well on OS X. Try H.264+AAC instead. It's supported by the greatest range of handheld devices, including iPod and iPhone.

False. See pictures below. These are taken at same low bitrate. RV10 is the video codec used in RMVB these days.


H.264


RV10


H.264


RV10

If you shrink a DVD down to one CD size or even less that, I can assure you the H.264 version looks a whole lot better and capable of preserving more details, not to mention the black will be solid instead of gray-looking like in RV10. An important thing to bear in mind. MP4, MKV, RMVB and the whole bunch of these formats are only containers. Codec is the key. Traditionally RMVB is desired because the Chinese people picked it up prior to the standards we have today. There is simply no reason to fall back on RMVB now thanks to the versatility in today's MP4 and MKV standards. Another point of note, when compressed beyond a certain threshold, your video clip will cease to entertain your audience, but will instead grate on them. Such is the case with the bulk of Youtube videos. For extremely compact sizes, a good rate you want to maintain is not below 512KB/s and definitely not above 640 horizontal resolution.

Here's a suggestion: try it before jumping to conclusions. And do re-read the last few lines of my previous post.

Wouldn't recommend converting RMVB to DVD at all. You'll find that RV10 already degrades the video quality so much that it totally isn't worth the effort. On top of it, subsequent recompression comes with further quality loss. For every video title you download in RMVB, the same can be found in AVI or other. If it's precious enough for you to want to press to DVD, then for your own sake, take the time to download it again off somewhere else at higher bitrate. You'll thank yourself later. If you absolutely must however, you can google for FFMPEGX. Same thing for iPod.

It's the user base. Why do they keep doing it? Because it's a religion.

This post has been edited by Bad Cyborg: Aug 24 2007, 09:47 AM

I wouldn't wish RMVB upon my worst enemies. Hmm. Or perhaps I should.

For the time you spend tinkering with the RMVB conversion, you could have googled and found a better version of it in AVI format, downloaded it, and watched it on your MPEG4 capable DVD deck. Just saying.