Quick question about CCE multipass

[Crichton]

I was just wondering, is there any quality difference in the output between doing a 3-pass encode and a 1-pass encode done 3 times over?

[Truman]

According to the cce manual and in my opinion you will have. At least at low bitrates, I mean, lower than 2000 kbps.

[homerpez]

I'm trying out a 3-pass as we speak...

What I'm getting for an answer on this is that it's EXCELLENT to to 3 passes for a movie in CCE, but over that is usually overkill.

I hope I see fewer blocks than with TMPGEnc...

[El_Mero_Zooter]

doing a 2 pass i found that i still saw some blockz on some parts (but didnt try it out on a dvd player). But doing a 3 pass (really a 4 pass, i think) no blockz, smooth as a striper'z azz, and played great.
im doing a 2 and 3 pass test on a trailer, since theres no point waiting ten hours to see tha movie, and find out i wasnt happy with the quality.

ZtR

[VidGuy]

Yes - 3 pass on CCE would be 4-pass on TMPGEnc.
If you do 3 1-pass's on CCE, it's the same as a single 3-pass. I quite often interrupt CCE after a pass, then resume it later - just don't kill the *.vaf file that it creates. I personally have the two passes output to different files, but I'm not sure that's required for the multiple passes to work - as far as I know, all the info is in the *.vaf file.

[Crichton]

Vidguy
Thanx man. Yeah that's what I gathered from the manual. I just wanted to make sure someone else took it the way I did. I've never 'interrupted' CCE after a pass but I'll try it with a lil file to see if I can get it to resume

[homerpez]

I'm gonna go ahead and post this question here, too (since nobody seems to know the answer elsewhere)...

What settings do you use to multiplex in bbMPEG to make a non-standard (MPEG-1 VBR) VCD? NOTHING I'M DOING WORKS.

I did the video in CCE, and either that's corrupted, or my settings are batty for multiplex.

What settings should I use in bbMPEG? List everything, please... thanks!

P.S. - Tried TMPGEnc's multiplex, also doesn't work... a 585MB .m2v, and 92MB .mp2 are merging into a 603MB .mpg! And this is using both TMPGEnc AND bbMPEG! "Underflow" errors all over the place!