Another x264 question

[raziel666]

I would like to ask if the combination of 0 B-frames (no B-frames) and less reference frames (e.g. 3), results in better quality with less compression or it has impact in quality as well.

[Sirber]

On low/med bitrate it will hurt the compression thus the quality.

[raziel666]

I'm talking of a bitrate at 1200. I'm asking because I read somewhere that if you use no B-frames, the compression is not so good, but the quality is better (obviously because of not so much compression). I guess... Is this true?

[GodofaGap]

With a fixed bitrate compression ratio wil of course never change. Quality will, and probably for the worse in case of turning off b-frames. I'm personally not too excited about multiple reference frames: the biggest impact they seem to have is slowing the whole lot down.