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Question About AVC CBR, AVC CVBR and HEVC.

jscrf said:
AS I don't have CBR with 640Kbps 5.1 EAC3 audio
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No, you do not, you are correct. HEVC is H265 and the newer codec. VCBR is a better one to use, it's variable and you get a better picture. You misunderstood my above post, perhaps I could have worded it better. Let's just say, CBR and VCBR are different. CBR is not suited for movies where encoding in VCBR makes it possible to process at a higher bit rate.
 
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Who said VCBR has better quality?
If you look at the post, I said that I, like many people, prefer the video in CBR, and that the program is failing in this aspect of CBR + 640Kbps 5.1, that is a fact.
It should be a user's choice, that the program does so:
choose video quality, and choose audio quality. Absolutely sure you know what I'm talking about, but anyway... let's hope if one day this comes to AS, or that AMZN makes things easier for AS and kills the x264/CBR content they have there.
 
jscrf said:
Who said VCBR has better quality?
If you look at the post, I said that I, like many people, prefer the video in CBR, and that the program is failing in this aspect of CBR + 640Kbps 5.1, that is a fact.
It should be a user's choice, that the program does so:
choose video quality, and choose audio quality. Absolutely sure you know what I'm talking about, but anyway... let's hope if one day this comes to AS, or that AMZN makes things easier for AS and kills the x264/CBR content they have there.
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I apologize for my poor language skills, I did word that sentence poorly. But I believe VCBR and better audio are the way to go. The fluctuating aspect of this method of encoding makes CVBR best suited for on-demand video as we download here in AnyStream.
 
jscrf said:
Who said VCBR has better quality?
If you look at the post, I said that I, like many people, prefer the video in CBR, and that the program is failing in this aspect of CBR + 640Kbps 5.1, that is a fact.
It should be a user's choice, that the program does so:
choose video quality, and choose audio quality. Absolutely sure you know what I'm talking about, but anyway... let's hope if one day this comes to AS, or that AMZN makes things easier for AS and kills the x264/CBR content they have there.
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The "competition" did at one time try what you stated...it only worked at best half the time. If you notice now, it does exactly the same as AS...CBR gets the lower audio and VBR the higher audio. New Amazon releases are an exception as they tend to provide the best audio for both....and that's still not a guarantee.
 
Jimc115 said:
The "competition" did at one time try what you stated...it only worked at best half the time. If you notice now, it does exactly the same as AS...CBR gets the lower audio and VBR the higher audio. New Amazon releases are an exception as they tend to provide the best audio for both....and that's still not a guarantee.
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I saw the topic, I just didn't post anything there.
But the CBR without EAC3 640 is bothering me.
I didn't want to post, because I've already seen the meaningless answers that the best comes with the best video.
Quietly, I say that AS should improve its interface, mainly in the choice of video and audio combination.
 
jscrf said:
I saw the topic, I just didn't post anything there.
But the CBR without EAC3 640 is bothering me.
I didn't want to post, because I've already seen the meaningless answers that the best comes with the best video.
Quietly, I say that AS should improve its interface, mainly in the choice of video and audio combination.
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AS provides what the MPD file gives it for choices....those choices are determined by Amazon.
 
Just puzzled:
I know CBR is contant bitrate.
I know VBR is variable bitrate
What is VCBR?
 
But what is the difference between Constant Bitrate and Video Constant Bitrate. Sounds to me like it's one and the same
 
CVBR is Variable Constrained Bitrate, it means that it is VBR with an upper limit to not explode the bandwith. You can have an average movie at 10Mbps bitrate and during a very fast and complex action scene the need of maybe 40 or 50Mbps, the "C" of CVBR will limit this, on Netflix the limit is 20Mbps for example on 1080p movies.
 
jscrf said:
Who said VCBR has better quality?
If you look at the post, I said that I, like many people, prefer the video in CBR, and that the program is failing in this aspect of CBR + 640Kbps 5.1, that is a fact.
It should be a user's choice, that the program does so:
choose video quality, and choose audio quality. Absolutely sure you know what I'm talking about, but anyway... let's hope if one day this comes to AS, or that AMZN makes things easier for AS and kills the x264/CBR content they have there.
Click to expand...
I said it has better quality. Cuz it does. There's no benefit to CBR

See here: https://forum.redfox.bz/threads/file-size-increased.85137/page-4
 
It really depends on the content in my opinion. For grainy, older films HEVC sometimes resolves the grain better than the AVC versions - but in 95% of the cases AVC beats HEVC on Prime Video as HEVC tends to get blurry reaaal fast because their encoding settings are meant to save bandwidth, not improve clarity. CBR vs (C)VBR AVC on the other hand is hit or miss, VBR used to be the better option but a few years ago Amazon changed their encoding settings, so while it may be higher bitrate than CBR it's often times worse because CBR uses better settings.

For SD for example, it's a bit different as CBR will not go as high as VBR resolution wise (for example CBR is sometimes locked at 720x480 while VBR can go up to 720x576) so for live action content VBR looks best in most cases, except maybe NTSC content or cartoons/anime.

But for HD as I said it really depends on the content. For cartoons/anime CBR is higher quality as it doesn't compress that heavily, you will notice this in older (remastered) content where there's a lot of grain or noise, CBR retains most of it. But most people won't notice a difference either way and prefer a "clean" look, which VBR does better as it smoothes/compresses out most fine detail - which in a cartoon doesn't really matter that much.
I'd grab both CBR and VBR versions and compare them side-by-side (StaxRip for example has a video comparison tool which is quite handy) - note that due to compression algorithms sometimes CBR will look better and sometimes VBR if you look at the individual frames. CBR looks better in dark spots as VBR tends to get blocky and produces banding as the bitrate drops, in fast-paced action scenes VBR will most likely come out on top. I found that CBR looks sharper overall but when it's bitstarved it looks worse than VBR.

Unfortunately there's no perfect solution and all 3 options have their pros and cons. Best allrounder would be AVC VBR, followed by AVC CBR and HEVC on last place as it produces the worst results most of the times (i.e. sky is completely blurry but everything else looks fine - it's just inconsistent and very annoying to look at in some spots).
I do prefer CBR in 80% of the cases though, especially for content shot digitally where there's not a lot of grain or noise thus can use the full 10Mbit/s where VBR would vary from 6-15 Mbit/s (but most of the time does not allocate the bitrate appropiately).
 
That's a pretty good guide which one to use. First and foremost there is no wrong choice here and all versions are very much ok at the very least.

Technically speaking CBR AVC is less flexible and thus inferior to VBR AVC while HEVC is superior to both. The way AP set up their encoding HEVC usually offers the best ratio of quality to filesize for the average user. If you care a lot about quality, their VBR AVC offers slightly better quality at the cost of somewhat larger files. And then comes their CBR encodes that in many cases even top of their VBR versions but with much larger files. Often more than twice the size of the HEVC.

Bottom line there is no one solution which version to choose, but it all depends how important quality vs. filesize is to you.
  • If you're about efficiency then HEVC will likely do it for you.
  • If you care a lot about quality, then there's no way around downloading all versions and comparing them. Likely ending up with the least efficient file.
  • And if you really want both, than you have to do it like me and get the best quality and transcode it to HEVC at optimal settings yourself. That's the only way to get best of both worlds, but at the downside of quite some additional effort.
 
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