2-pass and maximum bitrate

[espentan]

Is there a point doing a 2-pass in TMPGEnc if you have enough room on the disc to allow a CBR of 8000 kbit/sec?

I would think not as the first pass is just a bitrate allocation process, right?

I'm asking beacuse I'm aming for the best quality on this encode and a 2-pass takes twice as much time, and with the motion search precision set to highest, TMPGEnc likes to be left alone for the good part of a day...

[ZippyP.]

Is there a point doing a 2-pass in TMPGEnc if you have enough room on the disc to allow a CBR of 8000 kbit/sec?

No, not really. You're reaching a point where increasing the bitrate won't yield noticable results. Using 2-pass allows some scenes to get up to the maximum rate of 9,000, but like I say, I don't think you'll notice the difference.


Also, regarding search precision, the difference in quality between high and highest is pretty slight as well. You might want to try the faster (lower) one.

[espentan]

No, not really. You're reaching a point where increasing the bitrate won't yield noticable results. Using 2-pass allows some scenes to get up to the maximum rate of 9,000, but like I say, I don't think you'll notice the difference.

Do you mean that even with the maximum bitrate set to 8000 (the highest allowed in TMPGEnc, as far as I can tell) the bitrate can at times creep up to 9000 when doing a 2-pass?
Anyways, I'm sure my eyes can't tell the difference...

Also, regarding search precision, the difference in quality between high and highest is pretty slight as well. You might want to try the faster (lower) one.

I've read that before and noticed it myself during testing, but there's always the psychological thing in knowing that you did the best you could, even if you yourself could never tell the best from the second best

Thanks, though, you answered my question!

[ZippyP.]

Do you mean that even with the maximum bitrate set to 8000 (the highest allowed in TMPGEnc, as far as I can tell) the bitrate can at times creep up to 9000 when doing a 2-pass?

I didn't realize that TMPGEnc had an 8000 cap on video bitrate, 9800 is the video max bitrate spec for DVD. More info here. No sense using 2-pass at all if the bitrate is maxed out.

[SaSi]

You also don't need to set motion search precision to highest (it's purpose is to try hard to find motion vectors so as to minimize the size of the P and B frames and reduce bitrate).