There have been so much talk about tmpeg here. Like many others, I started using tmpeg from the day joined this forum. Now I have a question about bitrate. It's been saying that stting higher bitrate (but < 2500) will probably generate better quality (correct me if I'm wrong) but it works for me only from standard 1150 to 1250. Any higher bitrate I've tested will produce no video image. What real advantagedo we gain by setting higher bitrate?

-- kwan lee (kwanlee@altavista.com), August 12, 2000

Answers

that sounds more like you have a glitch in your program, if i am reading your question right. A higher bitrate will produce a nicer and higher quality looking picture. Meaning 99% of the time you cannot tell the difference between your video and your highrate video cd.

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), August 13, 2000.

anything over 1150 you are violating the standard. The chance of it playing back in a set top DVD player become less likely. As the last person stated, the reason to set hight bitrates is to improve quality, as every bit counts at this high of compression.

If you are dealing with short clips 30-45 minutes, you could investigate SVCD, as it's bitrate is variable and top out a 2600. Tmpeg has produced wonderful SVCD's just make sure you are using b12 or better. The only problem being that if your DVD does not play high bitrate vcd's it's unlikley it will play svcd's.

Happy encoding. -Eric

-- eric (eric@snowmoon.com), August 13, 2000.

Yes, right, Eric! I think it is because my stand-alone DVD won't read read any VCD that violates the standard bitrate 1150. Having heard all about how superior SVCD is over VCD, I have decided to turn to SVCD recording and not wasting any more time on exploring how to improve VCD quality. Unfortunately, my existing DVD player won't playback SVCD and I'll get one that will very shortly. Let's see how good SVCD is. I'll come back to you Eric.

-- kwan lee (kwanlee@altavista.com), August 13, 2000.

You do not violate the VCD standard until the sum of video bit rate and sound is 1374, called by Panasonic "system rate", so 1246 and 128 sound is a compliant file accepted by all encoders. Build 10 of TMPGEnc used 1246 (or just slightly lower I think) and 128 as default and in the current build 12 he has adopted 1150/224 as default. The first default is refered to as VCD (old) in some setting options particularly in the tools windows.

-- Ross McL (rmclennan@esc.net.au), August 14, 2000.