Max bitrate and Home Theater Profile.

[pogo stick]

Hello everyone!
I noticed that max bitrate values interval in DivX 5.1 has changed since 5.05.
So how is it better to set it? Or it depends only on encoding bitrate and I should leave it as it is?
And I see that max bitrate value is always 6951.2 when using Home Theater Profile .
So what difference in quality and file sizes will it be if I encode the same video source with the same settings except for this Profile enabled or disabled and altering max bitrate?
For example:
1) 2500 encoding bitrate and Home Theater Profile
2) 2500 encoding bitrate and 25000 max bitrate
3) 2500 encoding bitrate and 160000 max bitrate
Is it makes sense doing it?
I would try this by myself, but unfortunately I don't have enough time.
Thanks.

[manono]

Hi-

The Home Theater Profile is mainly for encoding for play on standalone DVD/MPEG4 players. Since they can stutter/freeze at bitrate spikes, the max bitrate is limited. The downside is that you may get blocks during those same high bitrate scenes when encoding using the Home Theater Profile. So, I'd say that if you don't have and don't plan to get one of those players, using the Home Theater Profile is a waste of time, and screws up your movies. Maybe it's useful if you have a weak computer, I don't know. Whether to set max bitrate to 160000 or 25000 (did you really mean 160000?) is pretty much academic, I think, as I don't know if you ever see bitrates that high.

[temporance]

In my experience the max bitrate will not have any effect unless it is less than 3x target birate. Infact I believe RV9 uses a default max bitrate that is only 2x target bitrate. So there really nothing to worry about when using DivX Home Theater profile.

[pogo stick]

Originally posted by temporance
In my experience the max bitrate will not have any effect unless it is less than 3x target birate. Infact I believe RV9 uses a default max bitrate that is only 2x target bitrate. So there really nothing to worry about when using DivX Home Theater profile.
But if one will use, for example, encoding bitrate 3000 (maybe for noisy 768x576 video) and Home Theater Profile (max bitrate 6951.2), then it's less then 3x.

[pogo stick]

Originally posted by manono

So, I'd say that if you don't have and don't plan to get one of those players, using the Home Theater Profile is a waste of time, and screws up your movies.
I actually planed to buy DVD/MPEG4 player. I still have only DVD-rom. So the problem is I used max bitrate higher then 6951.2 for all encodes I made. I don't really cared about GMC and Quarter Pixel since I planed to buy DVD with DivX support. But now I thought of max bitrate, playback compatibility and quality. So if there is such limitation I don't know will I buy it now. Is it because of chip limitation or something else? Will we see full compatibility in DVD/DivX players? I guess I will have to wait for a year or two.:(