Basic questions about video editors, converters and encoding

[XenonS]

Hello,
as a newbie in video matters I have spend a lot of time gathering basic information about editing or converting a video, but still there are fundamentals for which I have no answers. My questions are very basic and naive, so I hope I'm not stretching your patience and thanks for answering.

Video Editors (I use VSDC Free Video Editor):
AFAIK the choice of the Codec and its settings (bitrate, resolution, 1-pass, 2-pass etc.) is essential for the output quality, but do different video editors that are using the same codecs have the same output quality when encoding the same video?

The jungle of conversion: does anyhting go as long as you are not upsampling by using higher settings than the original videos, or what is the fundamental rule for not losing quality when converting? Can I chose higher settings anyway?
In my VSDC Free Video Editor, I actually have a high range of settings for a codec when encoding a video from raw format. But here just start my questions: Raw format? Before converting will VSDC store the raw format in memory before converting to any format so that I have the best quality for my chosen settings of a codec?

In other words: is there a difference between these 2 scenarios:

a)
I start a new project in VSDC, add a video, go to "Export Project" and export with specific settings of a codec

b)
I use the Converting tool of VSDC and convert the same video by chosing the exact same settings for the codec as in a)

I notice that VSDC also supports the Lossless PNG codec for encoding videos which gives me about a 650MB file for 2 minutes of playing time; if I start from such a file by doing editions and corrections and then convert the video to MP4, I get a good output video. But is this necessary at all? What if I start straight editing my video which has an exotic format of 854x480, 600 bitrate, 25fps, H264 codec and VSDC persists to change it in 848x480 ?

Encoding questions in VSDC Free Editor:
By reading topics in this forum, I understand that these scenarios below are the best practises of encoding depending if your video shows dynamic scenes like a lot of motions or the contrary like the interview of a person which doesn't move. In the first case, it's better to use a 2-pass encoding right? Can the following scenarios be setup in VSDC?

1-pass with constant bitrate (I was able to setup this; I chose a Target Bitrate; but is this CBR or VBR?)
1-pass with constant quality
2-pass with variable bitrate

How do you chose a variable bitrate in VSDC for motion-rich videos? Is this possible?

I realize that I have to stop now, because these are already a lot of questions. Thanks very much for anyone to put light on these basics

Greetings,
XenonS

[_Al_]

setting export to the same clip parameters is nonsense, you never know what you are going to get

first logical choice is constant bitrate , you have to choose bitrate that is very high to make sure, so video would look pretty, using constant bitrate, but you also get a lots of bitrate wasted, there will be scenes, where you do not need to have bitrate that high, what birate is enough? For regular camcorder video perhaps 25Mbit/s or 30Mbit/s, so no fuss but lots of waste in the process,

so you'd need that 1pass quality encoding, so for the first time do couple of encoding tests, perhaps even parts, minute long, end choose quantizer (that constant quality value, CRF value). When satisfied, raise that value and find your value that video starts to look visible not satisfying, use that previous latest number. When you get video not right for the first time search in opposite direction, lower the value and find the quality that is about right for you. For example value 18 will be ok, whereas value 20 gives you visible artifacts., so you choose 18 or 17.5,

that found CRF value, becomes somehow universal for you, and then you just use it all the time,

using 2pass VBR, you never know what average bitrate to choose, it is used when you have certain space to fill, not having other choice, like DVD or BD

[XenonS]

Hi AI,
thank you for your tips. To focus on quality you advocate to go with the 1-pass coding and experiment with the Quantizer setting. In fact, in my VSDC Free Editor, I can chose these advanced settings for the codec H.264/AVC:

Level: 5.1 (I suppose I should always use this for unlocking the max. bitrate selection possible?)
Encoding type: Single pass; 2-pass
In one drop-down box I can select Target Quantizer; Target bitrate; Target filesize.

So, in your tip I should play with the Target Quantizer and compare quality. I will try out this. I could also select 2-pass together with the Target Filesize. Is this the best compromise in quality for a specific file size output?

Thanks,
XenonS

[_Al_]

You decide to encode to target quality or to target the size, choice is yours.

None method is better than the other - if you happen target quality and by coincidence you get the same volume with 2pass VBR (targeting size), the quality is the same (providing the rest of the settings were the same). If your software targets size, most likely it calculates average bitrate and uses 2pass VBR, but I do not use that videoeditor.

Targeting quality you get what you want. Targeting size (using 2pass VBR) you can test all year long and you still are not going to be consistent with other videos because of different video content and video length.