@t.g.deck, I am very glad that you have a neutral attitude towards WMV. That's the way it should be my friend.

I am the same like you. I can't also wait till XviD 1.0 Final comes out. Reading every post in Doom9's official XviD new releases threads. I am very keen in trying all these other implementations of MPEG4. I have ignored DivX because, XviD is always better than DivX.

I tried 3ivX D4 4.5.1 with 5.1 OGG Audio this week. I was very impressed at the speeds. 109 frames per second was the encoding speed of 3ivX. Was able to encode a whole 90 mins movie in 23 minutes! Unfortunately I haven't still been able to watch it since I haven't got the direct show filters for matroska installed properly.

I have already tried ND-MPEG4 with MPEG4 Audio in Nero Recode. There was an obvious difference in quality. I think it is sacrificing quality for its impressive speed.

I haven't been able to try RV10 or RV9 since there are official open direct show filters. I am not much experienced in RealVideo, and I need to research a bit more.

Audio 2.0
Chanel right and left with full coupling: x Kbps

Audio 5.1
Chanel front right and front left with full coupling: ~x Kbps
Chanel rear right and rear left with full coupling: ~x Kbps
Chanel center: good average compressibility frame (voice) ~x/2 Kbps
Chanel LFE: very good average compressibility frame ~x/10 Kbps maxi for example

With the same quality level the equivalence for bitrate with x Kbps for 2.0 is ~ 2.5*x Kbps for 5.1 ...

For AC3
5.1 448 Kbps ~ 2.0 192 Kbps

For WMV9 pro
5.1 192 Kbps ~ 2.0 80 Kbps

For movie (audio frame generaly with good average compressibility) WMV9 pro 5.1 192 Kbps ABR 2 pass is a very good bitrate ...

here little sample (30 sec) demo:

Trailer Home of the Range:
- video WMV9 Pro 720*400 1350 Kbps
- audio WMA9 Pro 5.1 165 Kbps

Check www.microsoftusernetwork.com/zarax for other tutorials.

Got this feedback from a member at MSUN...



...and unfortunately it is actually true.

Therefore 3 guides were merged by filtering out their weaknesses and a Single guide was introduced.