what's the different between 1-pass and 2-pass in Divx?

[sai]

When I encoded with 2-pass option, it took more time but I can't see any different in the quality. Can I always do it with 1-pass?

[Slippery]

Basically its up to the individual on what quality you want. Someone will quote me if i'm wrong but i understand it when you do a 2 pass high action parts of the film will get more of a bitrate than low action therefore making high action more clearer. On 1 pass the whole film is at a constant bit rate all through.

[Cobra]

One-pass has three modes:

- CBR (Constant Bit Rate) - uses the same amount of data regardless of complexity
- VBR (Variable Bit Rate) - uses less data for a simple scene and more for a complex one
- Quality based (VBR) - tries to maintain a set quality level

These files could end up any size, except CBR where the filesize can be accurately predicted. They also do not yield the quality of two-pass encoding.

Two passes allows the encoder to find complex and simple scenes and allocate bitrate before it actually encodes. This means that:

- Bitrate is used much more efficiently, resulting in a higher quality file
- A certain filesize can be obtained accurately

Cobra