Video converter software bitrate questions

[60fpshacksrock]

I am a bit confused with certain software bitrate measurements. For example:

If a convert a video with Hybrid with say 1536 kbit/s Mediainfo tells me the bitrate is 1536 kb/s.

If a convert a video with Handbrake with say 1536 kbps Mediainfo tells me the bitrate is 1536 kb/s.

The difference being that Hybrid seems to use kilobit while Handbrake seems to use kilobytes and MediaInfo is saying 1536 kb/s
for both while they seem to use different measurement.
What I am most interested in is kbps. Also I was wondering if there were any free offline data size measurement tools.

Can someone please explain what is going on here? Thanks.

[jagabo]

Unfortunately, the usage of kb/s varies. It may men kilo bytes per second or kilo bits per second. You just need keep track of which each package uses. Personally, I use B for Byte and b for bit. But that's not universal.

And the "kilo" may mean 1000 or 1024 (aka kibi). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix Again, you just have to keep track of which the program uses.

[Selur]

Video bit rates are usually messured in kilo (= 1000) bit per second.
(note that unlike streams, file size is usually measured with kilo (= 1024))
kb is usually kilo (=1000) bit (used for data rates)
where as
KB is usually kilo (= 1024) byte (used for file sizes)

-> What makes you thing Handbrake uses kilo bytes/s instead of the usual kilo bit/s ?

Cu Selur

[emcodem]

Everything said here already Selur just leaves out the option kB which should then be 1000Bytes (data rate again, not used for file Size).

In Mediainfo's advanced output for example (-f on the commandline or Debug->Advanced+Debug->0 in GUI), we can access different representations of the values. I use this method to be sure to always retrieve the same representation programatically.
Bit rate : 4608000
Bit rate : 4 608 kb/s

[60fpshacksrock]

Video bit rates are usually messured in kilo (= 1000) bit per second.
(note that unlike streams, file size is usually measured with kilo (= 1024))
kb is usually kilo (=1000) bit (used for data rates)
where as
KB is usually kilo (= 1024) byte (used for file sizes)

-> What makes you thing Handbrake uses kilo bytes/s instead of the usual kilo bit/s ?

Cu Selur

This

[Selur]

okay,..
to sum it up:
kbps stands for kilo (=1000) bit per second
kBps stands for kilo (=1000) byte per second
Kbps stands for kilo (=1024) bit per second
KBps stands for kilo (=1024) byte per second

Cu Selur

[60fpshacksrock]

okay,..
to sum it up:
kbps stands for kilo (=1000) bit per second
kBps stands for kilo (=1000) byte per second
Kbps stands for kilo (=1024) bit per second
KBps stands for kilo (=1024) byte per second

Cu Selur

Okay. Thank you, and the others for the helpful information.
Also, I was wondering if there was any free software to convert between the different data size formats.

[Cornucopia]

It used to be worse, but things seem to have standardized.

Rules of thumb:

BIG "B" = Bytes
little "b" = bits

If dealing with data rates, kilo/mega/etc almost always has meant base1000 (aka 10^3), unless otherwise specified.
If dealing with storage space, kilo/mega/etc almost always meant base1024 (aka 2^10), unless otherwise specified, though this was not always true*. (Quoted numbers will be smaller than if per the other kilo.)

It would be really nice if everyone got on board with SI standard: kilo (1st) vs kibi (2nd).

Once you know the difference, and why/how it came about (*non-science types doing marketing for science folks - they cheated on that storage space thing, surprise surprise), it is fairly straightforwards to use a simple calculator (drill down to basic bits and then build back up again in proper format) if you aren't sure or if you don't have a custom converting calc.

referring to the orginal post: Hybrid & Handbrake & MediaInfo are all referring to the same "kilobits per second", even if the abbreviations are different. (base1000)


Scott

[60fpshacksrock]

Okay thanks.