What's a good bitrate for DVD quality on MP4?
 

Google left me with some wildly varying numbers.

I want to be able to take my DVD library and put it on my external HDD for viewing/streaming purposes. I'd also like to be able to view them on my tablet. If I have to do 2 versions of each episode, I will, but I'd rather not.

Since the source is DVD, I'm not looking for anything beyond that in quality. the largest device I'd be viewing it on is my 32" LCD TV. Even DVD has quality loss there, so....

I'd experiment, but it takes so long to encode just one, I'd rather see if anyone else has a decent rule.

The varying numbers will probably be based on what type of MP4 you're using.

I use h.264 and using Handbreak, the default of 1800 seems fine to my eyes. I bumped it up to 2500 after noticing that's what "scene rules" demand from the groups, but I couldn't tell much difference once the 480p file was run on my 42" TV.

H.264 I believe is the default I'd be using. What does 1800 tend to give you in terms of file sizes?