a better overall movie quality on GK? hints anyone?

[9inchNAIL]

anyone have any small tips on how to get the best movie quality overall when using GK?

apparently from some GK fanatics on a microsft movie chatroom -cant remember where, very late at night, was half asleep (like now)- doing a couple of first passes before the final pass + muxing audio is supposed to act as a filter for a better overall picture

supposedly the same goes for making the resolution lower on the final pass than the first, to filter out any unwanted distortion in the final picture

is there any truth to these claims? I've tried them both and the final movies seem identical to normal, maybe I'm not doing it right
-or I'm just stupid-

[jggimi]

Your question is probably better placed in the appropriate MPEG-4 codec forum. I know from your previous posts that you are interested in DivX 3, but your question on quality is really about codec settings, not about Gknot ... so your question should be raised in the specific codec forum.

I have no idea what codec you are using, but as you already know, there is a DivX 3/4 forum where DivX 3 settings and procedures may be discussed. There are also DivX 5 and XviD forums for the same purpose, if you are using or plan to use either of these.

Prior to posting in a codec forum, I recommend reviewing the applicable sticky threads, and doing a search or two. In that way, you'll avoid having your head handed to you by the forum members. ;)

One groups of documents you may not have seen, but I believe will interest you are Doom9's Codec Comparisons (http://www.doom9.org/codec-comparisons.htm). He's performed several different comparisons of various MPEG-4 codecs, and discusses settings, limitations, and his perceptions of each. Note that some codecs do better than others with certain types of content; which is why there are usually no hard and fast rules about what's best. And learning the strengths and weaknesses of the various codecs, I think, will be of great value to you.

The comparisons do not include video clips, just still frames, so you must either trust his judgement or recreate the tests yourself, if interested.

---

And, in finding that link for you today, I recall yet another name for DivX 3 along with all the others...."SBC" ... which is the term used for DivX 3 encodes when done with Nandub's Smart Bitrate Control.

[manono]

Hi-

My guess is that they were talking about the DivX5 nth pass process. There's probably some benefit to running 3 or 4 passes and getting slightly improved quality over the standard 2 pass method. For any other codec, if I understand you correctly, what you said makes no sense.

As for lowering the resolution for the final pass making a difference; it's important to run a compression test to help choose the resolution. If you have too high of a resolution for the file size and compressibility of the movie, lowering it will help. But that's generally done before running the first pass, and not for the second pass alone. As for filtering out any unwanted distortion in the final picture, lowering the resolution can help to get rid of artifacts caused by too low of a quality (quants too high). It will also cause you to lose detail and soften the picture, sometimes too much.

If you could track down a link to the discussion, that might help us figure out what they were saying.

[9inchNAIL]

cheers guys for the help-
time for some codec comparisons I think