[MediaInfo] What exactly is bitrate ?

[Klagar]

Hi all !

I'm not sure I'm in the good forum for this, but I reckon it can't be entirely the wrong place.
Also, I believe I saw the question asked once, but the original poster never got any real answer to this.

So here it goes : in MediaInfo, what do they mean when they evaluate the Bit rate of a video file (assuming VBR, since CBR must give the obvious answer) ? Do they mean to show the average bitrate ? Or the maximum bitrate used ? I read that softwares will alternate between the two, so I wonder which one MediaInfo uses, unless it means something else entirely ?

Thanks in advance !

[poisondeathray]

It isn't accurate, because it reads header information (can be wrong). For some types of files it is the bitrate entered when encoding, for others, it's the maximum bitrate entered (not necessarily achieved), for others it's the average bitrate. Eitherway it can be incorrect

You need to parse the video if you want accurate bitrate information e.g. bitrate viewer , elecard streameye

[Klagar]

Ok so it depends as much on the type of file as on the software itself.
Nice ! Thanks ! Now at least I can put my efforts in finding an alternate solution !
I'll see those softwares you mentionned, I think I'll need em !