Right now I've been going thru my sunday swearing and cursing at my monitor trying to fit a movie of good quality on 1 cdr....

A 4:3 ntsc interlaced 90min+ Son on a *^@!$

I think I got it now,this acceptable balance , I cut on all corners...
Stamped mp3 quality down a bit , and a 900+ bitrate was a no-way-in-hell if I was to retain a 512 width...

Tell me, wich movie gave you a headache ?

not had that much trouble to be honest. TDX guidelines for bitrate are 850+ btw, 512 minimum horizontal, non-cbr. Xvid 1.0 beta 2 gives great result son some of the tougher sources.