VBR minimum bitrate of 0?

[xycer]

is it ok to set the minimum bitrate to 0 for all sources? will it make the quality not as good?

[guns1inger]

Generally. if the encoder is a good one, setting it to 0 is fine. If you set a high max, and have a high average, then it gives more room to move when allocating, although there is a risk of it dipping too low. Generally, you should be able to set a minimum of around 2700-3200 for pretty much all sources.

[lordsmurf]

It will never be zero anyway. Setting it to 0 just let's the encoder use it's best judgment, which is fine.

[jimmalenko]

In theory, if you set the minimum to 0, your encoder could conceivably attempt to encode frames with a very, very small bitrate. In practice however, many people encode with this setting with no apparent ill-effects, so .....

I always think of the minimum as the lowest bitrate I want the encoder to use, and I always set it higher than 0. Just a preference/habit thing, I guess ....

[guns1inger]

depending oh where your average is, the higher the min, the lower the max. In order for it to be an average, you need to, at the end of the process, have as much data above the average as you do below. If you have an average of 5900, and set your min at 4200, theoretically, to meet you average, the encoder should not use more that around 7600 max. This could hurt you if there is a lot of action. At the same time, your slow scenes may end up being allocated more data than they really need. Most encoders seem to have a certain degree of flexibility, and will move above and below the figures you set in order to achieve the best image for the average bitrate you require.

[xycer]

thanks, maybe ill just use 1000 just in case.