Best rate control mode for TMPGEnc?

[Maxibonk]

I;m starting this topic firsdt of all to see what different people use and what the results have been and second of all to see if we can establish which is the best rate control mode for TMPGEnc

so please everybody put down their opinions of the diff. rate control modes available in TMPGnc. I'm particularly interested in what people think of CQ as in other forums i've seen that it is quite controversial.

[ZippyP.]

Here's what I think:

CBR: Fast but quality suffers if you lower the bitrate to save space.

CQ: Smaller files, fast, unpredictable file size.

2-pass VBR: Slow, saves space, predictable size.

I use 2-pass, encode overnight and get most flics on 2 Cd's.

[Maxibonk]

Thats what i've heard my comp takes overnight anyway just using CQ. the unpredictable file size can be annoying sometimes but has anyone heard about/ tried a CQ calculator?

Also not taking into account the time and being able to predict file sizes
which do you think gives better quality?

[ZippyP.]

Also not taking into account the time and being able to predict file sizes which do you think gives better quality?

Well, CBR at the maximum bitrate gives the best quality but it might be wasting bits for low-motion scenes. I told you what I use, what's best is what's best for you. 8)

Edit: I just looked at your PC specs, CQ might be your best bet as 2-pass would take way too long for a 600 MHz machine. CD's are cheap though so maybe CBR is best. Your choice.