Question regarding mplayer.

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I have a program called TVviewer (found here - http://tv-viewer.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page) that I use to record video tapes for the purpose of transferring them to DVDs, and it uses mplayer as the back end. my question is this - What it the command that allows me to change the bitrate that mplayer records at? And yes, I checked the online documentation for it, and what little was said about it had to do with Quicktime, or .avi files (the software that I am using automatically defaults to ".mpeg" format).

Any practical suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.