[MPlayer-DOCS] Re: encoding guide draft

[Jeff Clagg]

On Sun, Jun 19, 2005 at 04:36:33PM +0200, Tobias Diedrich wrote:
> D Richard Felker III wrote:
> [...]
> > > >Format      Resolution  V.Codec A.Codec           FPS    Aspect
> > > >NTSC DVD    720x480 *   MPEG-2  MP2,MP3,AC3,PCM   24,30  4:3,16:9
> [...]
> > > >PAL DVD     720x576 *   MPEG-2  MP2,MP3,AC3,PCM   25     4:3,16:9
> [...]
> > > 
> > > mp3 is neither permitted nor frequently supported by players;
> > > for dvd x=704 is standard and very useful, because it often permits to 
> > > crop without rescaling
> > 
> > Ah yes. :)
> > BTW I think mp3 _is_ standard/supported for PAL DVD, just not NTSC.
> > Can someone verify this?
> 
> I'm quite sure that MP3 is not supported.  Only MP2,AC3,PCM and
> optionally DTS are supported.

My understanding is that you're right, except that MP2 was not included
in the NTSC spec, and it's somewhat common to find NTSC players that
don't handle DVDs with MP2 audio. Unofficially, there are plenty of
nonstandard combinations that some players tolerate, and MP3 audio is
just one of many.

One thing left out of this guide: MPEG-1 video is allowed on DVD at
resolutions of 352x240 (NTSC) or 352x288 (PAL). This isn't identical to
VCD; you can use VBR and of course the allowed bitrate is much larger
and so is the VBV buffer size.