Shaolin Productions

Container(s) – [Eg. Avi, divx, mp4, mp3, mpeg, acc, m4a, 264, and many, many, others.] The container holds your audio, video and any other files such as subtitles, etc. Its the file extension at the end of your files, and allows your movie to contain certain features. One feature avi lacks, is holding VBR encoded audio files. Container format also differ in overhead, in that mp4 ends up taking up less space then a similarly encoded avi, the amount being insignificant compared to the features mp4 has over avi though.

VBR - [ Variable bit rate; versus CBR(constant bit rate) and average bit rate encoding. ]

VBR is recommend for a overall higher quality encode. Video is almost always VBR, unless its a streaming source. Audio was CBR now VBR is gaining is use. VBR uses bits more efficiently, in that it uses bits where it is needed (decided by the encoder). A VBR file is slightly larger in file size but of higher quality (when encoding MP3 and AAC at least).

Encoding types, Passes - [Single, Multi, Constant]

When you run and encode, you set the number of passes, for example single pass just encodes the video once and does all estimations and everything as it goes through the file. You can target bitrate or filesize. Now for a multi pass encode its a bit different. The first pass is always used just to scan the file, looking for motion, color and scene changes. This prepares for the 2nd encode by figured out where to place bits and how to reach a certain filesize more accuratly. The 2nd pass then does the encode just like a SIngle pass would, but now has better information so the encode almost always comes out better with an multi pass. More then 2 passes, you will see very little improvment with a 3rd pass often an unnoticable.

Constant quality - used for streaming mostly, the encode is a constant bitrate, usually low quality, but very high quality encodes can be created also(lossless encoding), but VBR is always recommended for video.

Change log

v1.5 - 1/10/05

new x264 SMP code and MeGUI build updates

rewrote for clarity and organization

v1.4

xvid 1.1 (woo!)

v1.3 - 12/15/2005

pub'd

added details on steps

glossary

v1.2

Xvid added

v1.1 - 11/21/2005

profiles

GUIs

links

v1.0

original

Credits

Typed up by fei
Credits go to countless people that have helped me over the years few that stick out in my mind:

-Xvid

JRB

Sean

Max

many people on doom9 forums

-x264

many people on doom9 forums

reflex

tox|k