Hi - A question about XMedia Recode encoding settings.

[Jimbo1]

I've tried just about every commercial video encoder on the net. So far I've found that the commercial ones find it difficult to produce a full HD movie at a very small size with excellent quality.

Handbrake and Media Coder (using High/advanced settings) converts won't play on my Blu-ray player. Tried just about every combination of settings to know avail.

I found that XMedia Recode suits me the best at the moment - to convert Blu-ray TS movies to MKV - H.264. Has some great features such as cropping, cutting, inserting chapters, direct copy, audio/video sync, pause, just to name a few.

However, there does not seem to be an option for VBR for H.264 (MKV).

These are the only options:

Average Bitrate
2 pass Average Bitrate
Constant quality
Constant Quantizer

I thought that using H.264 should give me this option. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I've been using 2 pass Average Bitrate but would much prefer to use VBR 2 pass.

Am I doing something wrong? Can anyone shed an light on this for me please,

[Baldrick]

2-pass, Constant quality and Constant Quantizer are all VBR.


Or use Ripbot264 or avchdcoder.

[Jimbo1]

CBR - constant bit rate

We speak of a constant bit rate when the space distribution is constant across the whole file, each site was therefore assigned the same memory. Due to this fact the quality suffers.

VBR - variable Bitrate

Much more advanced and preferable are variable bit rates. This makes it possible for the encoder, each body as much space as necessary to assign, for this size varies with the complexity of encoding is to music.

VBR is the bit rate mode that provides the best quality.

ABR -average bit rate

This mode is a kind of mixture of both, and is high in the middle. The aim is the average bit rate of a track as close as possible to stick to a predetermined size. As can also occur here bottlenecks similar to CBR and the bit rate within the file remains relatively close to the average bitrate, VBR mode offers a higher quality.

ABR is only interesting if a certain file size must be achieved, otherwise one should use in the interest of quality VBR.

Constant quantization

The constant quantization affects the macroblock quantization value, so to speak, the "compression" of the macro block. A smaller number results in higher quality and larger files (a higher bit rate results in less compression). The value range is 1 ...100 %. While the value of 100 is probably too high because it does not significantly improve the quality, but increase the file size significantly.

Hi Baldrick

I'm just a newbie when it comes to movie encoding. This is a copy of the help file from XMedia Recode. The compression type I'm looking for is VBR. It appears that none of these setting:

Average Bitrate
2 pass Average Bitrate
Constant quality
Constant Quantizer

= VBR 2 pass

[Baldrick]

I have already answered your question. 2-pass encoding is VBR.

[Jimbo1]

Made a mistake: Should be VidCoder not Media Coder.

[Jimbo1]

Hi again

There is a setting in XMedia Recode for Mpeg 2 which has the option VBR 2 pass. What does that actually mean and how is it different to 2 pass- Average Bitrate.

[davexnet]

See this for more info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_bitrate#Average_bitrate

[nicksson]

Constant Quantizer: This mode works by encoding every frame of the video at a particular quantizer. In simple terms, the quantizer determines how much detail is removed from the image. Lower quantizers will result in less detail being lost, but the filesizes will be larger, and higher quantizers mean more detail will be lost, but filesizes will be lower. Because this mode encodes every single frame at the same quantizer, it typically results in rather inefficient encodes. You shouldn't use this mode unless you have a specific reason for doing so.

Constant Quality: The constant quality mode works similarly to the constant quantizer mode, but it is MUCH better. Rather than encode every frame to the same quantizer, this mode allows for a bit of variation. Some frames might be encoded with a slightly higher quantizer, and some with a slightly lower quantizer (VBR). In practice, this results in smaller files than using Constant Quantizer mode, but at similar visual quality. This is the mode you should normally use.