Output quality impact of MeGUI gathering 1st pass stats at ABR (XviD, x264)?

[Irakli]

Hi, everybody

I hope this is right place to post, since I'm still newbie for MeGUI.

I am using MeGUI for some time now. However, only very recently I noticed that there is no possibility to have different settings for each of 2 passes. There is one thing which derives from this: the 1st pass stats for the 2nd pass are gathered at certain bitrate (which is the same as in the 2nd pass) rather than at certain quantiser (as in VFW).

Is gathering 1st pass stats at certain bitrate is less accurate (lower final quality) than gathering stats at certain quantiser?

If the answer is yes, could you please also suggest how to do encodes with MeGUI at different settings for each pass?

Thanks in advance for any help

[foxyshadis]

No, gathering statistics at the bitrate to be encoded at is more accurate than the q2 method in vfw. The closer your first pass average quant is to your second pass, the more accurate the stats are - since megui uses the same bitrate for both, the first pass average q is higher than the second, but it's still closer than a straight q2.

[Irakli]

:thanks: