first pass again when the filesize is too big?

[DvdKhl]

If I do the 1st pass with 1200 Bitrate.
The second, too. But the file is too big.

Do I have to encode the first pass again?

[hakko504]

That depends on how much too big the file is. You can change the bitrate by 15-20% without re-doing the first pass. To get slightly better results you should probably turn off the mv file if you redo the second pass with a bitrate that different. This is not necessary if you only are off by a few MB for a whole CD.

[DaveQB]

15-20% is the rule of thumb ??

no quality loss ??

what would happen with say a 50% difference ??

[hakko504]

Yes, 15-20% is a rule of thumb. This is the place where people have started to notice a quality difference compared to re-doing the first pass, especially if you're going down in bitrate. And yes, you do get a quality loss earlier, the question is when it is noticeable, thus requiring a complete start with new first-pass.

A 50% difference would give a lot worse results compared to re-doing the first pass.

And the above discussion only applies to 5.0.2 and the limited two-pass encode.

5.0.3 multipass is easier: just lower the bitrate, re-do the multipass with 'update log' enabled. If you don't like the results you just run another pass. It still might require 2 more passes, but you can always check the intermediate results before running the next pass.

And the best way of avoiding over/undersized files is to run a compression test before encoding. DivX5Enc and GKnot will do these things for you.

[DaveQB]

always wanted to know this,

thanx

[OvERaCiD23]

I always found it easier to keep the main movie the size it came out, and re-do the credits to make it the 'perfect' size. This doesn't apply if it's off by more than 10-15mb though (which I don't know in this case).