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What Is It?
A legacy format supported by virtually all computers.
What Plays It?
Some standalone devices, some DVD players, every computer after 1996.
More Information
MPEG video was created in the early 1990s as a worldwide standard for digital video. It
lives on in many forms today. MPEG video can be played by nearly every computer
without special software, plugins, or codecs needed.
Easy Settings One-by-One
NTSC/PAL
There are two major television formats in the world. NTSC and PAL.
NTSC stands for "North American Television Standards Committee", and as expected from the title, this format is used in
North America. It is also the native format of Japan and northwest South America.
PAL stands for "Phase Alternating Line", and as expected from the title, tells you absolutely nothing helpful, leaving you
lost and confused. It's the format used in the rest of the world, including Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and most of
South America. People in Antarctica are too cold to watch TV.
Consult this map for more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:NTSC-PAL-SECAM.png
For the purpose of MPEG video, SECAM and PAL are identical.
Quality
If visual quality isn't as important as just getting the message across, you can set the quality slider to "Low" or "Tiny". If
the video demands the absolute best quality possible, choose "High" or "Go Nuts". "Go Nuts" sets a data rate near the
maximum attainable quality of the codec. This setting may take over 5 times as much space as "Standard", but will look
nominally better.
This is a personal preference. "Standard" is good for the majority of users and video types. The rest is up to you.
MPEG-2 Encoding
MPEG-2 is a revision to the MPEG format. DVDs use a specialized set of MPEG-2 settings. Don't use this unless you
know why you have to.
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