tmpgenc 2.5 plus does not encode at chosen VBR bitrate

[kds2012]

Has anybody had this problem using tmpgenc 2.5:

You set the 2-pass VBR Average rate at a specific value,
but the output .m2v is not encoded at that rate?
Specifically, it is encoded at a lower rate/quality than
specified, and the file size is less than expected?

This happens intermittently on my XP x64 system --
I haven't detected a pattern yet. Has anybody else seen this??

[Blue_MiSfit]

Dunno... TMPGEnc 2.5 is _extremely_ old. It might have bizarre problems like this on newer systems. I'd say try out another MPEG-2 encoder, like HC or QuEnc.

~MiSfit

[Taurus]

Maybe the encoder gets saturated.
Out of curiosity:
Lower the bitrate settings avr/max/min to same settings.
For a test: 1500 kbits/sec
And you will see TmpgEnc will hit the desired bitrate.
Without knowing any of your sources/bitrate/resolution it's only guessing.
Or maybe your settings are messed up. Different Quantize Matrix? etc.....
Set everything to default, or delete the Tmpgenc.ini.
Warning, this will zero any of your customations to default.
Just verified my suggestions and Mediainfo shows exact numbers at lower bitrates 1500/2000 kbits/sec.
But at 8000 kbits/sec encoder gets saturated to about 4500 kbits/sec at this source.
This is on XP 32bit....
Hope this helps

[kds2012]

Hey thx Taurus -- saturation seems to be the issue -- and it's not one I'm familiar with. Care to share what you know? (I'll be searching elsewhere in any case.)

[kds2012]

I think I get it now... on VBR at least, the encoder won't exceed the source -- I always figured it was like MP3 -- if you told it to oversample it would, even if there was no quality gain.