robshot method or 5-pass VBR?

[brett]

For my first CCE project, I'm doing LotR... Looks like it'll need a bitrate right around 2990 to fit with just the original audio.

I've been studying the Robshot guide which everybody seems to say is the best, but I just had one question...

After you do the first pass, is all that fooling around on the "Advanced" section just to save time? Will doing one pass then tweaking the "grey areas" and doing a second pass be the best results, or can I get similar results by just setting 5-pass and going to sleep?

I guess I really don't understand what it's doing between passes. Is it just trying to get closer to the actual bitrate, or is it tweaking the quality (fixing grey areas) itself? It lets you set as many as 9 passes...

What happens if you do one-pass to create the .VAF file then do a 3-pass or 5-pass encode? Will it just be the same as if you hadn't created the .VAF?

What if you do one-pass, then tweak the Advanced settings, then do a 5-pass encode? Would that be the best possible encode, or would it be redundant? Would it override your tweaks after a few passes?

I'm just going to set it on 5-pass (without creating the .VAF first) and leave for the evening, and see how that goes. I'd really appreciate any explanations, though.

[Eyes`Only]

Hmm lots of questions! Ok lets start:

After you do the first pass, is all that fooling around on the "Advanced" section just to save time? Will doing one pass then tweaking the "grey areas" and doing a second pass be the best results, or can I get similar results by just setting 5-pass and going to sleep?

Subsequent passes will still give better results, however too many passes have been rumored to actually decrease quality (kinda like overcooking noodles, maybe?) whereas many think that anything over 3 or 4 passes is wasted and the improvement you'll get (if any) isn't enough to care about.

What happens if you do one-pass to create the .VAF file then do a 3-pass or 5-pass encode? Will it just be the same as if you hadn't created the .VAF?

If you do a 3-pass encode, CCE actually does four passes. The first pass creates the .vaf, the other 3 are the actual 3 passes you specified. If you run a one pass, the .vaf is created. If you run a 3-pass after a one-pass, the .vaf file is already there, CCE notes that it doesnt need to do that first pass, and continues on doing the 3-pass. Does that make sense?

What if you do one-pass, then tweak the Advanced settings, then do a 5-pass encode? Would that be the best possible encode, or would it be redundant? Would it override your tweaks after a few passes?

Well actually that's the best method. The big difference is that if you do a 3-pass without doing the one-pass, you can't hit the 'advanced button' and see how your settings are going to affect the overall quality of the end result. It's recommended to do a one-pass and create the .vaf. Then switch to multipass, hit the advanced button, and configure your settings optimally, set the amount of extra passes you want, and run the multi-pass. Oh one more thing-- Chapters (i-frames) are only created in the first-pass, so if you care about your chapter settings, don't forget to do them in the first pass.

I'm just going to set it on 5-pass (without creating the .VAF first) and leave for the evening, and see how that goes. I'd really appreciate any explanations, though.

Ok basically you just did six passes, including the mandatory first pass that CCE had to do in order to figure out what do to in your other 5 passes.

Hope this helps.

[brett]

Thanks for all the info.

The drive I was encoding to (which also happened to have my Win2K swapfile) decided to spin down because it didn't like running at Ultra-160, so I ended up coming home to a blue screen instead of my movie... But I re-encoded, doing a 1st pass then looking at the advanced settings. It had no grey areas and a Q-value of 4.1, so I just did a 3-pass and everything came out beautifully.

[Matthew]

"Well actually that's the best method. The big difference is that if you do a 3-pass without doing the one-pass, you can't hit the 'advanced button' and see how your settings are going to affect the overall quality of the end result."

You can hit cancel after the mpv encoding starts then look at the advanced settings, fiddle around then resume with mpv encoding. Well you can with 2.64 anyway ;)

[Eyes`Only]

Sorry, replace "can't" with "won't" :D

You're right, you can always stop the second pass (or any subsequent pass) and go to the advanced screen. And yes, it works on CCE 2.5+

[auenf]

Originally posted by Matthew
"Well actually that's the best method. The big difference is that if you do a 3-pass without doing the one-pass, you can't hit the 'advanced button' and see how your settings are going to affect the overall quality of the end result."

You can hit cancel after the mpv encoding starts then look at the advanced settings, fiddle around then resume with mpv encoding. Well you can with 2.64 anyway ;)

well, the 'advanced' part of CCE in the robshot guide is basically so you can make the movie take up as little room as possible, if you have a set bitrate, you can just set it on multipass and walk away, 3000 should be fine for non-interlaced content. basically unless you want to individually change GOP bitrates, just set your desired bitrate and hit go, the multiple passes will even out the bitrate for you a fair bit.

Enf...