Can anyone suggest a program that will encode a high-quality video to play back in Windows Media player from a CD?

I've always used a cheap version of Ulead Video Studio to compress video to MPEG-1 (320x240) ... I'd put it on CD with an autorun and it would play on anyone's Window's Media Player or Real Player or whatever.

I'd love to find a program that does the same thing with MPEG-2, since it's a higher quality and offers a larger frame size. Anyone have any suggestions for such a cheap program? I tried a newer version of Ulead Video Studio but the video only plays back half-way on other peoples' computers ... plays fine on mine, though.

Remember: I don't want to edit video with it ... just compress an already-edited video to MPEG-2 format.

Thanks!

remember that mpeg2 is not from microsoft and is not included in microsoft operating systems for licensing reason.
Everything that requires software to be installed (especially realplayer) is often considered as a pain by users.
I you really want to be microsoft , go for windows media codecs, that are as good as mpeg2.
as far as i know, you still can produce mpeg1 at non-standard size bigger than 352 x 288 if you need bigger pictures.

There are many options out there:
Cleaner, Canopus ProCoder, TMPGENC come to mind.
Check out VideoHelp.com (http://www.videohelp.com), they have a lot of information
on DVD authoring. I realize it isn't exactly what you're
looking for, but there is quite a bit on there about encoding.

-Luis

you could create an mpeg2 file, and include a freeware mpeg player on the disc... kind of a hassle, tho.

windows media player has the best quality, but at higher bitrates it may require a faster computer.

if you have the video on your pc, you can download the windows media encoder for free, and see how it works.