Which format to use for HC?

[moviemaven]

Pretty much a newbie here, just using default settings. I am mainly doing TV shows, and I put as many episodes on a dsic as I can while keeping the bitrate above 4000. My question is, which of the following is better: 1pass or 2pass, and if 2pass, lossless or not. Time and space are not a restriction here.

Also, for what I do, is standard mpeg matrix good enough?? The shows are basically sticoms and mystery, not high action.

I have included a sample INI file of mine below.

Thanks,

Glenn

*INFILE I:\Last Detective\lade-3-1-WP.avs
*OUTFILE I:\Last Detective\lade-3-1-WP.m2v
*LOGFILE I:\Last Detective\lade-3-1-WP.log
*BITRATE 4100
*MAXBITRATE 9000
*PROFILE best
*ASPECT 16:9
*AUTOGOP 15
*LOSSLESS
*AVSMEMORY 512
*MATRIX mpeg

[midnightsun]

2pass will *generally* be better than 1pass VBR (introduced in the last beta-024).
Since you're keeping an eye on the final filesiz, 1pass CQ is not a viable option for you as size can be highly unpredictable.

Mpeg-2 cannot be lossless by definition.
The lossless option you see in the GUI, refers to the possibility to use a lossless copy of the video to be encoded as a 2nd pass source in case of avisynth input, so that the script is processed only during the 1st pass. This is useful when you have a complex script/source that will take forever to encode and you use that as the source for the 1st pass, a lossless file is saved to the hard disk and is then used as source in the 2nd pass, thus speeding up the encoding process considerably. Of course lossless intermediate file means huge amount of additional HDD space.

Your INI file looks ok, just be sure your material is really progressive since that's what you're encoding to. In case it's interlaced instead, just tick "interlaced" in the "settings1" page and TFF/BFF appropriately (look around for the procedure for telling TFF from BFF if you're unsure of what type of interlaced video you have, although if it's not DV video it will most likely be TFF)

[moviemaven]

Thanks for the reply. I gather my scripts are not too complex to require lossless. Do you suggest AVSRELOAD??

The only time I had problems with interlace was when the fps was 24, which so far has happened only once.

Anyone on the matrices??

Again, thank you

Glenn

[Guest]

Also, for what I do, is standard mpeg matrix good enough?? Yes, it is fine for you.

[moviemaven]

Thanks.