2 pass vs. 4 pass

[EvergreenTerrace]

I have been wandering round this site for quite awhile and have gleaned much information from people's posts and from various how-to guides. But I have what might seem like a silly question. How much of a difference will it make using 4 pass VBR vs. 2 pass VPR in CCE. Thanks in advance for replies.

[Cobra]

I know that MPEG-4 works slightly differently to MPEG-2, but DivX Networks have stated that their codec reaches 97-98% of the total quality after two passes. When you think about it, that makes sense - you aren't going to spot/refine more motion and be able to allocate bitrate much better after the second pass.

It's probably not worth the extra time, but try it for yourself with a smaller sample clip and see what you prefer!

Cobra

[bugster]

Why not try it and find out?

Honestly though, the actual answer is it depends to a certain amount on the kind of material you are encoding. You will see little or no difference with l9ow-action stuff but may see some improvement with high action or loads of difficult to encode scenes like waterfalls, fire or explosions.

Is it worth the extra encoding time, only you can decide.

This all assume excellent quality source material of course

[thor300]

The difference is close to $1950, so unless you want the trial-ware CCE SP logo to appear on your videos i would say CCE Basic using two-pass is much better for the price. If you already got CCE Sp then 4-pass will give a slightly better encoding, but unlikely to be visible during playback. I noticed many people posting here talking about very high number of passes, wonder if they encode with the logo or if they really paid $2000 for CCE SP?

[teegee420]

This is just my opinion but I see no need to use any more than 3 passes unless you are using a really low bitrate.

[EvergreenTerrace]

Thank You all for your informative replies