720x576 & 480x576 Outputs the same sized file???

[civ]

I encoded a 1.5hr movie @ 720x576 by accident because I forgot to change the resizing in the avs script.
After it finished I noticed the output file was about 1.5gb, I was expecting this size for the 480x576 output.

So I changed the resizing to 480x576 and re-encoded the movie.
When it was all done the file size was pratically the same. Give/take 1-2mb.

Does anyone know why this is?

Both where done with 3-pass vbr.

[bb]

If you choose the same bitrate for different resolutions, the codec will try to match that bitrate, thus produce equally-sized files. The difference is in the quality (blockiness etc.), not in the filesize.

bb

[civ]

Ahhhh, that makes sense.. Silly me :)