need information on CCE VBR passes

[Cheffro]

I looked around, and couldn't find an answer to this easy question, and was hoping someone would donate an answer:

When CCE does multiple pass VBR does it go through and do one complete pass first, and then the second, etc. ie: if my machine locks up at 33% in a 3pass VBR setup does that mean it's locking up after the first pass?

Thanks for any info.

[jeffnoone]

if multipass is the first thing you do, all the first pass does is construct a .vaf file - a smallish info file that tells subsequents passes how to distribute bit-rate (and possibly other info)

every subsequent pass creates the full CCE'd movie
if you cancel towards the end of a pass, your directory will quickly show up with a playable (and virtually complete) .mpv file
This .mpv file is written over as each susbequent pass starts - canceling at this point will mean a very short .mpv file - useless

So a 3-pass CCE will actially do 4 passes
AS far as I can remember, the % percent completion on the first pass is how far to completion of .vaf file. SO this figure rises to 100% during first pass

However on second pass (the first encoding pass), the % refers to the % completed of teh total 3 encoding passes. So as it reaches the end of the 2nd pass(the first encoding pass), teh percent will be 33%, reflecting that it has done 1/3 of the encoding task
JEff

[Cheffro]

Thanks a ton! That's exactly what I was looking for :)