Which rate control mode in TMPEG provides the best results?

[perdomot]

I've been using the constant bitrate setting to make vcds/svcds but someone said you can get better results by using a variable bitrate. TMPEG has several modes including the 2 pass and the automatic VBR and I don't know which one to use. Can Someone advise me? Thanks.

[BSR]

Well, for lower bitrate encodes, and I want the best quality, I would recommend 2pass VBR.
If I have the luxury to encode at a higher bitrate, 7000 or so, and don't need to fit a long video on DVD, then I would use CBR.

[Sillyname]

2-pass vbr is always going to be better...
It depends on how you set it up, though. It has a few more settings you have to take into account.

[NamPla]

I use CQ_VBR.

I read somewhere (in this forum perhaps? it was long ago) that TMPGEnc was built around it's "CQ" feature - ie its developers put a lot of time into tweaking the "CQ" mode specifically, over the other options. Is this true?

I DO know that I am very happy with my results with "CQ_VBR", and encoding times is cut in half (or more).

[jimmalenko]

The only problem with CQ_VBR is there is no accurate way of predicting file size. If file size is an issue, I use 2-Pass VBR. For full D1 (720 * 576) I set the Max to 9000, the ave to whatever the bitrate calc here tells me to, and the min to 2000. For half D1 (352 * 576) I set the Max to 5500, the ave to whatever the bitrate calc tells me to, and the min to 2000.