Determining Quant Used

[Asrial]

I have a movie (2nd Pass 1st Pass, 1.4gb) where I set frames start-X at weight 1 and Y-end at weight .1

How do I confirm (if it can't be done visually) that the credits were encoded at a much smaller bitrate?

Also, if I don't care about credits and want them taking up VERY little space should I use a quant zone or weighting zone?

[Asrial]

Actually, looking at the way the latest unstable (not beta 1 or 2) is set up I don't think there's any bitrate reduction at all during 2 pass 1st pass mode.

You can't give any kind of credit reduction except in pass 2. ..and the reason for using 'encode in greyscale' during credits is in case there's faint color on the credits (who knows).

The more I think about it, the more I feel that setting credits and even encoding them in greyscale hasn't had any affect on my encodes where I'm doing 2pass encoding but only keeping the 1st pass.

[jkwarras]

Originally posted by Asrial
How do I confirm (if it can't be done visually) that the credits were encoded at a much smaller bitrate?


Open the movie in VDmod and cut the credits (direct stream copy). Save it to avi and open it with GSpot or Media info: they tell you what avg bitrate has been encoded to.

[Shalcker]

In the first pass weight settings are ignored, since at that point there is no way for codec to even guess which quants can be used to archieve 0.1 (or any other) bitrate there.

If you want to encode credits with lower bitrate in the first pass, set fixed quant zone with quantizer higher then 2 there. You cannot control bitrate distribution in the first pass in any other way.

[Audionut]

Personally I go fixed quant 31 for both first and second passes for the credits.

[Asrial]

The ability to change quants during 2 pass 1st pass works like a charm.

It's funny to see the opening intro and credits to be seriously crappy (in a file that's 1.4gb) and then you come into pristine video. Heh.