Black and White MPEGs ?

[djidjo]

Hi folks,

I was wondering if the MPEG format allows "optimal" encoding for black and white movies : only 8 bits per pixel are required for a B&W movie, we don't need 24 or 32 bits per pixel.

This way we could easily fit an entire B&W movie on only one VCD/SVCD, picture quality would be higher for a lower bitrate...

Thanks for any help,
Djidjo