when maxed out, would the 2nd pass differ from the first?

[((( atom )))]

hi,

a simply question just for my understanding:

when i encode a movie wich i suspect to saturate the codec, can i simply keep the first pass, when i see, that it is smaller than my target-size, or is something done different in 2pass-mode 1st pass? actually i am rather sure about this, but you never know.

that would save a lot of time every now and than..

[R3g]

I'm not really sure, but first pass should have really few I-frame. So the file might be readable, but seeking may be rather impossible.
Also, even if the filesizes are equals, birate will be better distributed in the 2nd pass file.

[Wuntvor]

Im no expert , but since the first pass is made with quant=2 and uses as many bits as it need, thats the best quality you can get.
You can not get better quality in the second pass by "better bit-distribution", because all frames allready have as many bits as it need.

EDIT: And the I-frame decisions are the same.

regards
/wuntvor

[((( atom )))]

ok, makes sense..

thx