Nice post. But why stick to mp3, why not ogg. Better quality, can be vbr. This keeps the filesize down, and the quality up. All you mp3 encoders, try ogg for a while, and compare the differences. You should hear a better sound quality in your ogg releases. Ogg is also free. The audio one is called ogg vorbis. There is a video one, but still in alpha i believe.