[MPlayer-users] Question about bitrate when encoding with mencoder

[jasonrc at gomdoli.com]

I'm just learning how to encode dvds to divx using mplayer. I am doing
this with the 3 pass method for divx4. At the end of the first pass,
mencoder tells me the recomended bitrate for various cd sizes. For
example, it may say for an 800MB cd, use 700, and for a 650MB cd, use
850. However, I thought that a higher birate was used to create larger
files with higher quiality, but from the output from the first pass, it
seems to imply that a lower bitrate makes a larger file. Have I got the
deffinition of bit rate all backwards? I thought that bitrate ment the
number of bits used to encode each frame, thus the more bits, the higher
the quality of the image. Someone please set me straight, I serached in
both the online documentation, and in the mencoder man page, but didn't
find what I was looking for.

jason