[mythtv-users] Encoding

[Rich West]

I have a couple of (dozen) DVD's of TV shows that I was putting on-line
for my mythtv setup, and I began to wonder: if these episodes are 2GB
each and approximately 43 minutes, why is it that some of those unnamed
on-line download places have these same episodes at approximately
300MB?  How do they do it yet still retain the picture quality?  How is
it that MythTV plays it within mythvideo rather than mplayer?

Those smaller files are in Xvid, typically, so I set about re-encoding
the DVD's I had to either MP4 or Xvid to reduce the size, but I had
mixed results.  I've got 78 episodes, so, at 2GB each, they do chew up a
fair amount of room.  I used handbrake to convert to MP4, but while the
picture quality was excellent and the file size was pretty decent
(600+MB), my frontend would only play it via mplayer (which the family
did not like).  Forcing it to play with the internal player resulted in
extremely choppy video and audio.  I tried to convert to Xvid or DivX,
but I couldn't seem to get the application (either on a Windows box or
using mencoder on my mythtv server) or the options correct, so the
playback was always choppy or the picture was grainy within Mythvideo.

I must not be googling correctly, because I cannot seem to find just the
right options that play nicely with mythtv's internal video player. Any
pointers in the proper direction would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!
-Rich