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Activity Forums Compression Techniques MPEG-2 Max. bitrate ?

  • MPEG-2 Max. bitrate ?

    Posted by Matti Kautiainen on October 11, 2005 at 10:22 am

    We are asked to encode some spots to MPEG-2 files with these settings:

    8 -12 Mbit/s (max 25Mbit/s) CBR or VBR
    Main Profile & Main level (MP@ML)
    PAL, interlaced
    YUV 4:2:0

    AFAIK MPEG-2 max bitrate can’t be even close that 25Mbit/s
    So what is max. bitrate in MPEG-2 file?

    …and if it can be as high, what encoder can do those files (hopefully on Mac, windows too) ?

    Maza

    Ben Waggoner replied 19 years, 3 months ago 5 Members · 8 Replies
  • 8 Replies
  • Ed Dooley

    October 12, 2005 at 4:42 pm

    Don’t even go near the maximum bit rate if you want compatibility on as
    many players as possible. A 10 second Google search got this (along with thousands more hits):
    Ed

    DVD
    Additional restrictions and modifications of MPEG-2 on DVD are:
    Resolution
    720

  • Charles Simonson

    October 12, 2005 at 11:45 pm

    I take it this isn’t for DVD, and more likely for sending to a broadcaster. The specs given to you are more than manageble and within reason. The max bitrate of MPEG-2 really isn’t limited as you suspect, but it seems to max out at around 160mbps for 1080p23.98. Of course, that bitrate is only for archival purposes, and there are quite a few houses that I know who encode SD for archive at 40-60mbps as well.

    As far as a safe peak bitrate if you are encoding for DVD, I would say no more than 8.5mbps. I have seen some players that can handle up to 18mbps on the peak though. For broadcast, just encode at the max available specs you can, as it will be re-encoded once it is muxed into a transport stream and the bitrate is made significantly lower.

    For encoding to really high bitrates and having total control over the encode, I would suggest the MainConcept Encoder. There are PC and Mac versions available.

  • Matti Kautiainen

    October 13, 2005 at 7:06 am

    You’re right, we aren’t encoding files for DVD.

    Problem is, neither Compressor or Cleaner doesn’t allow higher bitrates than 10 – 12 Mbit/s when encoding. We tried TMPGEnc -software as client suggested, but still no bitrates over 12 Mbit/s (plus it can’t handle QuickTime video). Quality isn’t really suitable for broadcast with these rates.

    Is there a software that can do MPEG-2 with higher bitrates ?

    Oh, yes videos are normal 720 x 576 PAL.

  • Charles Simonson

    October 13, 2005 at 8:49 pm

    As I said previously, the MainConcept Encoder will do this for you. ProCoder 2 is also capable of encoding MPEG-2 at higher bitrates. Both will accept QuickTimes. And, it should be noted that the content you are encoding will be broadcast at a much lower bitrate than what you provide to them. I would expect a 8mbps encode with Apple Compressor 2 to look pretty decent, but if all you have is Compressor 1 or Cleaner, then you may be trouble. A cheap app to try out on the mac is ffmpegX, although there are some caveats to its use.

  • Matti Kautiainen

    October 14, 2005 at 6:07 am

    Thanks very much for your help, we’ll check those programs.
    Again thanks.
    Maza

  • Ben Waggoner

    October 21, 2005 at 5:09 pm

    And let me give a shout out to ProCoder as one of the highest quality and most flexible MPEG-2 tools out there. I’ve been doing the whackiest weird stuff with it lately, and the only thing it doesn’t handle is transport streams with muxed ac-3.

    My Book: https://www.benwaggoner.com/books.htm
    Squeeze and ProCoder tutorials: https://www.classondemand.net/benwaggoner/
    Compression Class at Stanford: https://www.digitalmediaacademy.org/compression.html

  • Matthew Keane

    October 21, 2005 at 6:32 pm

    > the only thing it doesn’t handle is transport streams with muxed ac-3.

    Hi Ben,

    You mean as an source file? It can compress to mpeg2 and mux in an ac3 file though, right? I suppose I should just head over to their site and read all the blurb, but it’s been a veeeery long day!

    Thanks,

    Matthew

  • Ben Waggoner

    October 21, 2005 at 7:02 pm

    It can’t mux existing assets. If you want to do AC-3 with it, you’ll export an elementary stream, and then make the ac-3 and mux with another tool.

    My Book: https://www.benwaggoner.com/books.htm
    Squeeze and ProCoder tutorials: https://www.classondemand.net/benwaggoner/
    Compression Class at Stanford: https://www.digitalmediaacademy.org/compression.html

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