I've always used CBR for SVCD's encoding

[Beautiful Alone]

Is VBR really meant to used for SVCD's? Cuz, i've always used CBR, and the quality looks great.

and also, no matter which one i choose for encoding SVCD's, the Bit Rates are still the same when i put the movie to fit on a 80min CD-R in the last step. Does it really matter?

[sterno]

SVCD officially supports VBR, yes. Your average bitrate for 2-pass VBR will be the same as your CBR bitrate if you use a bitrate calculator to fill the CD, but it will use the space more intelligently (hopefully). Scenes that have more action will get a higher bitrate, scenes with less will get a lower bitrate, but the final size will be the same. That means that you can usually put more video on at the same quality, or the same amount at higher quality. But if your VBR average is close enough to the maximum then you don't gain much and your encode takes a lot longer.

[SatStorm]

You can use VBR with SVCD.
You have benefits only on 10 min+ files. For shorter clips, better use CBR.

[freak_in_cage_10k]

yeah man! VBR rules! Think of it like this: do you really want to be wasting your 2220kbs (or whatever!) on the end credits of your svcd, or on a basic scene with little movement? wouldn't you rather use your "spare" kb in a more useful scene (such as an explosion/action scene?) There is no loss in compatability or anything because svcd supports vbr! in a low action scene, credits, views etc the bit rate would decrease- you probably wouldn;t even notice but in an explosion the bit rate would shoot right up and you would view the explosion in very near dvd quality! well worth it in my opinion!

[Beautiful Alone]

Hmm?? No matter CBR or VBR i've always calculate to fit on a 80min CD-R, which the quality are the same.

So..you're saying that VBR are good for action scenes?

[dbecker]

What we are trying to tell you is that you are wasting cdr space using cbr (unless it is a small clip and you can fit an svcd at 2500kps on th cd). What vbr does it utilizes the kps where it needs to be put. For instance, if there is a scene where there is no movement at all, then you can use 400kps to make that scene(the lower the kps the less space it needs on the cd)without sacraficing the quality. On a fast motion scene, like a chase scene, it needs the max kps to prevent it from becoming blocking or pixelating. Hope this helps

[RabidDog]

AS a side point, does anyone exceed the max bitrate of 2520 ? and if so does it (can it) yield any improvement in quality? eh high action movies chop socky whack bang

[dbecker]

yes you can exceed it, however it becomes a non-standard svcd (xsvcd) and most dvd players will not play them.

[adam]

Yes, actually SVCD is one area, unlike DVD, where the max limit really is very constraining. If you can use an average bitrate of more than ~2.1mbits than any smooth scene is pretty much going to look very good. In this instance, the worst scenes in your whole movie will be the ones encoded at ~2500kbits, because if they were complex enough to max out your bitrate, they almost surely could have used more. Raising this to 3mbits can really help, especially in action sequences. Most SVCD compatible DVD players actually ignore the SVCD max bitrate (2600kbits video/2778kbits total), but of course you always take that risk when you deviate from the standard.

[uxbridge]

what I found using TMPGenc with CBR and VBR is that:

1. if you have an average bitrate in the area of 2.100-2.200, although VBR would be preferrable, TMPGenc is not always able to keep at the highest limit of 2.500 and sometimes goes beyond. The video becomes unuseable, at leat on my DVD player.
In this case CBR is the olny choice.

2. If you ave a bitrate between 1.200-2.000, then VBR produces substantial and objective better quality than CBR, for obvious reasons well explained by other posters.
You can easily fit the disk at 100% of its capacity.

3. If you have to encode lower than 1.100, of course VBR is better, however you cannot easily fit the disk, sometimes the resulting file is bigger or smaller. I do not know why, but TMPGenc support say this is pretty normal.

Ciao