OK... here are his multiple explanations. Taste the poo.
"My Star Wars set, even in single layer form, has a Q of about 2 on average. This number does not lie... it tells you exactly the amount of picture quality lost due to compression, and the amount lost due to compression is less than what most dual layer hollywood DVDs have to go through."
"I believe you missed what I said about bitrate viewer. Every mpeg encoded video, be it mpeg1 or mpeg2, has a number associated with each small sequence of frames. This number is called the "Q level" and describes, basically, the difference in quality between the source frame and the mpeg2 compressed frame. It ranges from 1 to 100 with 1 being best and 100 being worst. There is nothing to be "gained" by forcing the bitrate higher because there is nothing LOST at the bitrate I used for the single layer discs (about 3500kbps)."
"The Q Level (Which isn't an opinion of quality but an absolute statement of deviation from the source frame) is less than 3 in both versions. Most Hollywood DVDs aren't even compressed this perfectly (but thats because they have detail that makes it harder to compress anyway).
The dual layer version exists but as I've stressed at least 5 times before and can't believe i'm saying it a 6th time... THE COMPRESSION IS NOT THE ISSUE."
"In this case, to claim DVD9 is somehow "better" you'd have to assume that DVD5 wasn't "good enough." Since the source is laserdisc and not film, it means its not as sharp. Since its not as sharp as film, its easier to compress. And since its easier to compress, it doesn't need DVD9. Bitrate viewer agrees."
"B) For fucks sake raised to the 20th power, the video fits JUST FINE on a single layer disc with menus and everything. No we will not be offering it on dual layer, except I made a dual layer version anyway to compare the Q levels of each disc and show how unnecessary it is. It goes like this:
1. Soft video is easy to compress
2. Laserdiscs are softer than DVD
3. Thus laserdisc video is easier to compress than "usual" dvd material.
4. Thus shut the hell up. QED. "
"For this, I think the average bitrate was about 3200 kbps or so. The average Q in bitrate viewer is less than 3, so really there are minimal compression artifacts. I believe I used an image priority setting of 40, as the noise can at times confuse the compressor so I went for a closer to balanced setting, leaning towards giving most of the bitrate to sharp areas. In cleaner signals, I would use a lower image priority setting so as to prevent mosquito noise. I had the max set to 8500 because with PCM audio, if it goes over that it might make some DVD players choke on the signal. All in all, it didn't matter much as the bitrate stays mostly between about 2000 and 5000 kbps."
"The average bitrate I'm using on the new set (which is actually a little less than I used on the old set because I'm making room for menus) still produces a maximum Q level (as reported by bitrateviewer) of LESS THAN 5, and an average of less than 3. While this doesn't imply that the final video quality is perfect, it DOES imply that the quality lost due to compression is extremely minimal."