need advice on GOP structure

[Diamenz]

i'm encoding at a constant 8000 in ntsc, full d1. will i achieve better quality with 1I and 17P; or should i use 1I and say maybe 8 or 9P? Thanks.

ah, one more thing. since P frames are based on other frames, do they work better when you do a 2pass over a 1pass even if you're encoding at say 8000 for the min, ave, and max bitrate?

[Mug Funky]

for CBR, there shouldn't be a difference between 1 and 2 passes (and you'll save a lot of time with 1 pass). any differences would be trivial.

as for GOP structure, you'd get a performance gain out of using 1 b-frame instead of 2, but it depends on the footage, and again there wont be a big difference. make sure to keep GOPs at DVD compliant lengths though (no more than 15 for PAL, or 18 for NTSC).